4.8 Article

Human joint enabled flexible self-sustainable sweat sensors

Journal

NANO ENERGY
Volume 92, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2021.106786

Keywords

Sweat sensor; Human joints; Self-sustainable electronics; Wireless signal transmission; Flexible and wearable electronics

Funding

  1. Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, National Natural Science Foundation of China [32071407, 62003203, T2125003, 61875015]
  2. Beijing Natural Science Foundation [7212204]
  3. City University of Hong Kong [9610423, 9667199, 9667221, 9680322]
  4. Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [21210820, 11213721]
  5. Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission [JCYJ20200109110201713]

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Flexible and wearable electronics offer advantages for real-time human health monitoring, but energy consumption remains a challenge. By leveraging human joints as an energy source, a battery-free sweat sensing system has been developed with self-sustainable energy supply and physiological parameter detection capabilities.
Flexible and wearable electronics have presented a wide range of advantages to non-invasive real-time human health monitoring. However, its remarkable energy consumption during continuous and long-time operation brings essential, practical challenges, which lead to growing recognition of exploring new and efficient energy strategies for wearables. Here, inspired by human joints as a biomechanical energy source that shows an ideal option for sustainable powers, we design a battery-free sweat sensing system integrated with sweat resistant selfsustainable energy supply and wireless communication interface, where piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) efficiently converting biomechanical energy from freely movable joints (finger, cubital fossa and popliteal space) into electricity serving as the self-powering module. Physiological relevant parameters in sweat, including Na+ , K+ and pH, are sensed and wirelessly transmitted to the user interface via Bluetooth communication. This system shows a paradigm of wearable electronics driven by human joints that demonstrated efficient self-sustainable energy supply and multiplexed physiological detection.

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