With cancer, diabetes and heart disease among the leading causes of disability and death in the United States, imagine a long-term home monitoring solution that can detect these chronic conditions early and lead to timely intervention.
Zheng Yan and a team of researchers from the University of Missouri may find a solution. They created a super-soft, breathable, elastic skin-like material for use in developing a bioelectronic device that can be worn on the skin and can simultaneously monitor multiple vital signs, such as blood pressure, electrical activity of the heart and the pulse. . skin hydration. .
"Our main goal is to help improve the long-term biocompatibility and long-term precision of wearable bioelectronics through innovation in this porous core material, which has many new properties," said Yang, an assistant professor of chemistry and biomedicine. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautical Engineering.
Manufactured from a liquid elastomer, the main characteristic of this material is its soft, leather-like properties.
“It is very soft and elastic, so when it is applied to the human body, it will be mechanically invisible to the user,” Yang said. “You don't feel it and you will most likely forget it. This is because people can feel a pressure of about 20 kPa or more when they have something on their skin, and this material generates less pressure."
Its built-in antibacterial and antiviral properties can also help prevent the formation of harmful pathogens on the surface of the skin under the device during prolonged use.
“We call it mechanical and electrical separation, so when the material is stretched, there is only a small change in electrical characteristics during human movement, and the device can still record high-quality biological signals from the human body,” Yang said. .
While other researchers have been working on similar projects for liquid elastomer composites, Yang said the MU team has a new approach because the "sitri" material they developed can prevent liquid metal from seeping out when the material is stretched across the body. movement of the human body. .
The work builds on the team's existing proof of concept, as evidenced by their previous work, including a heart monitor currently under development. Yang hopes that in the future, the biological data collected by the device can be transferred wirelessly to a smartphone or similar electronic device for sharing with healthcare professionals.
Science Advances published an article "Porous Liquid Metal Elastomer Composites with High Leakage Resistance and Antimicrobial Properties for Skin-Contact Bioelectronics."
More information: Yadong Xu et al., Porous Liquid Elastomeric Composites with High Sealing and Antimicrobial Properties for Skin-to-Skin Bioelectronics, Advances in Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf0575
Citation : Wear and forget: ultra-soft material for skin health devices (February 8, 2023). Retrieved on February 8, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-02-ultrasoft-material-on-skin-health-devices. .html
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