Textile biosensor based on conductive polymer for sweat analysis

Wearable devices are gaining much interest for the application in biomedical and athletic performance monitoring. Many devices are able to realize physical measurements, like heart beat or accelerometer monitoring. More difficult and more challenging is the realization of chemical and biochemical sensor that perform efficient measurements in wearable devices. A great challenge is to use wearable devices to monitor human sweat and control important physiological parameters in noninvasive way. In literature solutions have been tested with plastic patches, that use microfluidic to collect the sample and a printed device on plastic to monitor parameters. The limits of these technologies are represented by a difficult to collect the sample from the skin and the noncomfortable condition of having a plastic patch on the skin. To answer to these limitations IMEM CNR develop textile biosensors, based on conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS that are able to work completely embedded in textile materials1,2. Moreover, the textile devices are able to collect spontaneously the sweat and analyze it in the fibers. The polymers have been used in an Organic Electrochemical Transistors architecture. The devices could monitor saline concentration in human sweat, in a wearable setup, continuously and in noninvasive way. The biosensors could be used to monitor hydration of athletes and patients, giving crucial information on their physiological conditions. In this work we have tested different textile fibers, and we have characterized the device for different conductive polymer, for different substrate and optimized the response of the device. The textile sweat analysis biosensors are efficient candidates as wearable devices for monitoring human physiological conditions