What is it about?

In recent years, there has been significant interest in developing wearable devices to mimic the integrated sensing of life forms, which enhances their performance and survival capabilities. Progress in the development of physical sensors and wearable electronics has been promising, leading to numerous consumer products that measure activity, posture, heart rate, respiration rate, and blood oxygen level. Despite the challenges in retrieving and processing bodily fluids, wearable chemical sensors have been slower to develop. Sweat provides a rich repository of biomarkers that can be accessed continuously, on-the-go, and non-invasively. This review explores recent trends in wearable sweat sensing, including topics in material science, device development, sensing mechanisms, power generation, and data management. Examples of wearable sweat sensors are included as well as commercialization efforts. The review highlights the trends in multifunctional sensing platforms with flexible electronics that integrate data from both physical and biochemical sweat sensors.

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Why is it important?

The review highlights the trends in multifunctional sensing platforms which incorporate flexible electronics to integrate data from both physical and biochemical sensors.

Perspectives

The integration of physical and chemical sensing mechanisms found in nature has been harnessed to enable the development of wearable devices that can track the biochemical and physiological signals of the human body. Numerous consumer electronics have been developed to measure activity, posture, heart rate, respiration rate, and blood oxygen level. Sweat sampling provides a source of biomarkers that is accessible in a continuous, on-the-go, and non-invasive way, allowing for unique developments in wearable sweat sensing. This review focuses on recent trends in material science, device development, sensing mechanisms, power generation, and data management related to these devices. Additionally, exemplary wearable sweat sensors and commercialization efforts in this area are discussed, with an emphasis on the multifunctional sensing platforms that integrate data from both physical and biochemical sweat sensors.

Prof Santosh Pandey
Iowa State University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Sweat sensing in the smart wearables era: Towards integrative, multifunctional and body-compliant perspiration analysis, Sensors and Actuators A Physical, September 2019, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.sna.2019.07.020.
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