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Stretchable sweat sensors are promising technology that can acquire biomolecular insights for health and fitness monitoring by intimate integration with the body. However, current sensors often require microfabricated microfluidic channels to control sweat flow during lab-on-body analysis, which makes effective and affordable sweat sampling a significant practical challenge. Here, we present stretchable and sweat-wicking patches that utilize bioinspired smart wettable membranes for the on-demand manipulation of sweat flow. In a scalable process, the membrane is created by stacking hydrophobic elastomer nanofibers onto soft microfoams with predefined two-dimensional superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic patterns. The engineered heterogeneous wettability distribution allows these porous membranes to achieve enhanced extraction and selective collection of sweat in embedded assays. Despite the simplified architecture, the color reactions between sweat and chemical indicators are inhibited from directly contacting the skin to achieve a largely improved operation safety. The sensing patches can simultaneously quantify pH, urea, and calcium in sweat through digital colorimetric analysis with smartphone images. The construction with all compliant materials renders these patches soft and stretchy to achieve conformal attachment to the skin. Successfully analyzing sweat compositions after physical exercises illustrates the practical suitability of these skin-attachable sensors for health tracking and point-of-care diagnosis.
Sun et al. (Wed,) studied this question.