Abstract:
Monitoring sweat secretion rate is essential for uncovering underlying physical conditions like hyperhidrosis, mental stress, and neural disorders. Often, flexible microfluidic sweat rate monitoring devices use tape as a means of attachment to the skin to tightly seal the collection area. While these single-use, adhesive-backed devices have lightweight and thin interfaces for mounting on the skin, their form factor complicates their potential integration with available commercial wearables, such as smartwatches. Here, a tape-free device, consisting of a 3D-printed sweat collector with a concave surface that is strapped onto the skin to form an effective seal, is presented. The materials, structure, and dimensions of the sweat collector are optimized for conformal device-to-skin contact and efficient capture of sweat. The collector is interfaced with a fluidic microchannel with embedded electrodes for continuous digital monitoring of sweat rate. Long-term exercise-induced local sweat rate from multiple body locations in both multi-subject and longitudinal studies is measured, depicting the correlation between the measured sweat profile and total body fluid loss. The simple installation procedure and reusability of this tape-free device make it a good candidate for integration with the band of a watch.
Publication date:
January 26, 2023
Publication type:
Journal Article
Citation:
Dautta, M., Ayala-Cardona, L. F., Davis, N., Aggarwal, A., Park, J., Wang, S., Gillan, L., Jansson, E., Hietala, M., Ko, H., Hiltunen, J., Javey, A., Tape-Free, Digital Wearable Band for Exercise Sweat Rate Monitoring. Adv. Mater. Technol. 2023, 2201187. https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202201187