Abstract

Skin-inspired stress and strains sensors have great potential applications to wearable and implantable devices to monitor human motions. Enormous flexible sensors have showed very high sensitivity and stretchability for in vitro studies. For in situ monitoring motions of tissues or organs, robust tissue adhesion, fatigue resistance, and biocompatibility are desired for sensors to achieve stable and reliable performance. Moreover, the in-situ signals are supposed to transmit wirelessly for remote diagnostics. Inspired by the mussel and zwitterionic adhesion mechanisms, we prepared novel tissue-adhesive, self-healing and conductive polydopamine zwitterionic nanocomposite hydrogels. The catechol and zwitterionic groups provide reversible and robust adhesion to tissues with strength up to 19.4 kPa. The zwitterionic hydrogels are ion conductive and show a strain sensitivity (gauge factor) up to 4.3. The hydrogel sensors robustly adhere to organs like heart, liver, and lung to collect signals for remote monitoring and diagnostics through wireless transmission. This is the first demonstration to organ motion monitoring by using tissue-adhesive hydrogel sensors through wireless signal transmission. It opens a novel avenue for implantable wireless devices free of suturing.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/MH/D0MH00361A#!divAbstract