Presented in this work is a novel and facile approach to fabricate an elastic, attachable, and cost-efficient carbon nanotube (CNT)-based strain gauge which can be efficiently used as bodily motion sensors. An innovative and unique method is introduced to align CNTs without external excitations or any complicated procedure. In this design, CNTs are aligned and distributed uniformly on the entire chewing gum by multiple stretching and folding technique. The current sensor is demonstrated to be a linear strain sensor for at least strains up to 200% and can detect strains as high as 530% with a high sensitivity ranging from 12 to 25 and high durability. The gum sensor has been used as bodily motion sensors, and outstanding results are achieved; the sensitivity is quite high, capable of tracing slow breathing. Since the gum sensor can be patterned into various forms, it has wide applications in miniaturized sensors and biochips. Interestingly, we revealed that our gum sensor has the ability to monitor humidity changes with high sensitivity and fast resistance response capable of monitoring human breathing.
Keywords: bodily motion sensors; chewing gums; humid sensors; multiwalled carbon nanotubes; strain sensors.