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On-Body Chemical Sensors for Monitoring Sweat

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Wearable and Autonomous Biomedical Devices and Systems for Smart Environment

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 75))

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the challenges of performing on-body chemical analysis of body fluids. Wearable chemosensors are a relatively novel implementation, bringing new challenges to the field of wearable sensor technology and body sensor networks. Integration of chemical sensors into a textile substrate is a challenging task, as a chemical reaction must happen for these devices to generate a signal. Furthermore, they often require mixing samples and reagents, which results in waste generation. Therefore a wearable chemosensor must be capable of controlling the movement of these substances for a reaction to occur before generating a signal that can be measured. In this paper, we present the design and development of platforms to collect and analyse sweat in-situ and provide real-time feedback to the wearer. Two approaches are described, the first a textile based approach developed during the EU BIOTEX project. The second improves on this design through miniaturisation of the device by using a micro-fluidic platform. The performance of the developed systems is presented and the relevance of these wearable lab-on-a-chip devices is discussed for personalised healthcare and sports performance.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, National Centre for Sensor Research, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland

    Shirley Coyle, Fernando Benito-Lopez, Robert Byrne & Dermot Diamond

Authors
  1. Shirley Coyle
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  2. Fernando Benito-Lopez
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  3. Robert Byrne
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  4. Dermot Diamond
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento d’Ingegneria dell’innovazione, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Aimé Lay-Ekuakille

  2. School of Engineering and Advanced Technology (SEAT), Massey University (Turitea Campus), Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay

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Coyle, S., Benito-Lopez, F., Byrne, R., Diamond, D. (2010). On-Body Chemical Sensors for Monitoring Sweat. In: Lay-Ekuakille, A., Mukhopadhyay, S.C. (eds) Wearable and Autonomous Biomedical Devices and Systems for Smart Environment. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 75. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15687-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15687-8_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15686-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15687-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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