Rapid prototyping of a novel and flexible paper based oxygen sensing patch via additive inkjet printing process

Dinesh Maddipatla; Binu B Narakathu; Manuel Ochoa; Rahim Rahimi; Jiawei Zhou; Chang K Yoon; Hongjie Jiang; Hazim Al-Zubaidi; Sherine O Obare; Michael A Zieger; Babak Ziaie; Massood Z Atashbar

doi:10.1039/c9ra02883h

Rapid prototyping of a novel and flexible paper based oxygen sensing patch via additive inkjet printing process

RSC Adv. 2019 Jul 23;9(39):22695-22704. doi: 10.1039/c9ra02883h. eCollection 2019 Jul 17.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western Michigan University Michigan USA dinesh.maddipatla@wmich.edu.
² School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University Indiana USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, Western Michigan University Michigan USA.
⁴ Indiana University School of Medicine Indianapolis Indiana USA.

Abstract

A novel and flexible oxygen sensing patch was successfully developed for wearable, industrial, food packaging, pharmaceutical and biomedical applications using a cost-efficient and rapid prototypable additive inkjet print manufacturing process. An oxygen sensitive ink was formulated by dissolving ruthenium dye and ethyl cellulose polymer in ethanol in a 1 : 1 : 98 (w/w/w) ratio. The patch was fabricated by depositing the oxygen sensitive ink on a flexible parchment paper substrate using an inkjet printing process. A maximum absorbance from 430 nm to 480 nm and a fluorescence of 600 nm was observed for the oxygen sensitive ink. The capability of the oxygen sensitive patch was investigated by measuring the fluorescence quenching lifetime of the printed dye for varying oxygen concentration levels. A fluorescence lifetime decay (τ) from ≈4 μs to ≈1.9 μs was calculated for the printed oxygen sensor patch, for oxygen concentrations varying from ≈5 mg L^-1 to ≈25 mg L^-1. A sensitivity of 0.11 μs mg L^-1 and a correlation coefficient of 0.9315 was measured for the printed patches. The results demonstrated the feasibility of employing an inkjet printing process for the rapid prototyping of flexible and moisture resistant oxygen sensitive patches which facilitates a non-invasive method for monitoring oxygen and its concentration levels.