Flexible microfluidic nanoplasmonic sensors for refreshable and portable recognition of sweat biochemical fingerprint

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Abstract

Wearable sweat sensors with various sensing systems can provide noninvasive medical diagnostics and healthcare monitoring. Here, we demonstrate a wearable microfluidic nanoplasmonic sensor capable of refreshable and portable recognition fingerprint information of targeted biomarkers including urea, lactate, and pH in sweat. A miniature, thin plasmonic metasurface with homogeneous mushroom-shaped hot spots and high surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity is designed and integrated into a microfluidics platform. Compared to conventional wearable SERS platforms with the risk of mixed effect between new and old sweat, the microfluidic SERS system allows sweat administration in a controllable and high temporal-resolution fashion, providing refreshable SERS analysis. We use a portable and customized Raman analyzer with a friendly human-machine interface for portable recognition of the spectroscopic signatures of sweat biomarkers. This study integrates epidermal microfluidics with portable SERS molecular recognition, presenting a controllable, handy, and dynamical biofluid sensing system for personalized medicine.

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Optical Constants of the Noble Metals

P. Johnson, R. Christy (1972)

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Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis.

Wei Gao, Sam Emaminejad, Hnin Nyein … (2016)

Wearable sensor technologies are essential to the realization of personalized medicine through continuously monitoring an individual's state of health. Sampling human sweat, which is rich in physiological information, could enable non-invasive monitoring. Previously reported sweat-based and other non-invasive biosensors either can only monitor a single analyte at a time or lack on-site signal processing circuitry and sensor calibration mechanisms for accurate analysis of the physiological state. Given the complexity of sweat secretion, simultaneous and multiplexed screening of target biomarkers is critical and requires full system integration to ensure the accuracy of measurements. Here we present a mechanically flexible and fully integrated (that is, no external analysis is needed) sensor array for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis, which simultaneously and selectively measures sweat metabolites (such as glucose and lactate) and electrolytes (such as sodium and potassium ions), as well as the skin temperature (to calibrate the response of the sensors). Our work bridges the technological gap between signal transduction, conditioning (amplification and filtering), processing and wireless transmission in wearable biosensors by merging plastic-based sensors that interface with the skin with silicon integrated circuits consolidated on a flexible circuit board for complex signal processing. This application could not have been realized using either of these technologies alone owing to their respective inherent limitations. The wearable system is used to measure the detailed sweat profile of human subjects engaged in prolonged indoor and outdoor physical activities, and to make a real-time assessment of the physiological state of the subjects. This platform enables a wide range of personalized diagnostic and physiological monitoring applications.