Wearable strain sensor for real-time sweat volume monitoring

Lirong Wang; Tailin Xu; Chuan Fan; Xueji Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.102028

Wearable strain sensor for real-time sweat volume monitoring

iScience. 2020 Dec 31;24(1):102028. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.102028. eCollection 2021 Jan 22.

Authors

Lirong Wang¹, Tailin Xu^{1

2}, Chuan Fan¹, Xueji Zhang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, P. R. China.
² Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy (SZ), School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518060, P. R. China.

Abstract

Reliably monitoring sweat volume has attracted much attention due to its important role in the assessment of physiological health conditions and the prevention of dehydration. Here, we present the first example of wearable strain sensor for real-time sweat volume monitoring. Such sweat volume monitoring sensor is simply fabricated via embedding strain sensing fabric in super-absorbent hydrogels, the hydrogels can wick sweat up off the skin surface to swell and then trigger the strain sensing fabrics response. This sensor can realize real-time detection of sweat volume (0.15-700 μL), shows excellent repeatability and stability against movement or light interference, reliability in the non-pathological range (pH: 4-9 and salinity: 0-100 mM NaCl) in addition. Such sensor combing swellable hydrogels with strain sensing fabrics provides a novel measurement method of wearable devices for sweat volume monitoring.

Keywords: Bioelectrical Engineering; Electronic Materials; Sensor.