Design and development of a flexible skin microfluidic biosensor for personalised healthcare applications

Abstract

In healthcare, these flexible biosensors have paved the way for the development of comfortable and non-intrusive health monitoring devices. Wearable sensors and patches seamlessly adhere to the skin, enabling continuous monitoring of vital signs and providing valuable data for personalized healthcare. The integration of flexible biosensors into medical devices offers new possibilities for remote patient monitoring and early disease detection. This paper reviews the design of the flexible skin biosensor and how it was made using 3D printing methods and investigated the suitability of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for the sensor platform by characterizing its mechanical properties through stretch and tensile tests, demonstrating its flexibility for comfortable wear. The fabrication process involved creating microfluidic channels within the PDMS chip to facilitate sweat collection and analysis. The presence of air bubbles within the microfluidic channels, revealed by initial flow testing, highlights the need for further optimization of the casting process to achieve a leak-proof microfluidic network for accurate sensor performance. The focus on future efforts will be on refining the casting process, enzymatic detection and sensor integration as well as sensor performance integration. This work lays the foundation for a non-invasive sweat glucose monitoring system using a PDMS-based microfluidic sensor. The study successfully achieved the fabrication of microfluidic channels within the PDMS biosensor and the channels exhibited the desired dimensions and geometry for efficient sweat collection and analysis. Stretch and tensile tests confirmed that PDMS possesses the necessary mechanical properties for the application. The material exhibited sufficient flexibility for comfortable wear on the skin without compromising its structural integrity.