Toxic gases such as NO2 and irritant gases such as NH3 are two of the harshest aspects that trigger the exacerbation of the respiratory system for asthma patients. Monitoring and recording high‐risk gases are very important for tracking disease and alerting patients because humans can be exposed to a vulnerable environment with inconspicuous gases. Current detectors suffer from lack of portability and cannot provide daily real‐time detection. This work develops a light, inexpensive epidermal gas sensor based on ultralarge MoSe2 nanosheets. MoSe2 nanosheets are obtained using a gold‐assisted exfoliation method and the electrical and optical properties of the film are characterized. A high‐performance gas sensor for NO2 and NH3, which can be integrated onto human skin, is fabricated and shows great stability with up to 30% tensile strain. In particular, the device is able to detect down to 1 part per million with fast response (<200 s). The system is effective in providing timely warnings and the sensing data are uploaded to a cloud‐based terminal so that a medical institute can easily access them and provide a more accurate diagnosis.
Microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies have made it possible to manipulate small volume liquids with unprecedented resolution, automation and integration. However, most current microfluidic systems still rely on bulky off-chip infrastructures such as compressed pressure sources, syringe pumps and computers to achieve complex liquid manipulation functions. Here, we present a handheld automated microfluidic liquid handling system controlled by a smartphone, which is enabled by combining elastomeric on-chip valves and a compact pneumatic system. As a demonstration, we show that the system can automatically perform all the liquid handling steps of a bead-based sandwich immunoassay on a multi-layer PDMS chip without any human intervention. The footprint of the system is 6 × 10.5 × 16.5cm, and the total weight is 829g including battery. Powered by a 12.8V 1500mAh Li battery, the system consumed 2.2W on average during the immunoassay and lasted for 8.7 hrs. This handheld microfluidic liquid handling platform is generally applicable to many biochemical and cell-based assays requiring complex liquid manipulation and sample preparation steps such as FISH, PCR, flow cytometry and nucleic acid sequencing. In particular, the integration of this technology with read-out biosensors may help enable the realization of the long-sought Tricorder-like handheld in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) systems.
Non-invasive continuous alcohol monitoring has potential applications in both population research and in clinical management of acute alcohol intoxication or chronic alcoholism. Current wearable monitors based on transdermal alcohol content (TAC) sensing are relatively bulky and have limited quantification accuracy. Here we describe the development of a discreet wearable transdermal alcohol (TAC) sensor in the form of a wristband or armband. This novel sensor can detect vapor-phase alcohol in perspiration from 0.09 ppm (equivalent to 0.09 mg/dL sweat alcohol concentration at 25 °C under Henry's Law equilibrium) to over 500 ppm at oneminute time resolution. The TAC sensor is powered by a 110 mAh lithium battery that lasts for over 7 days. In addition, the sensor can function as a medical "internet-of-things" (IoT) device by connecting to an Android smartphone gateway via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and upload data to a cloud informatics system. Such wearable IoT sensors may enable largescale alcohol-related research and personalized management. We also present evidence suggesting a hypothesis that perspiration rate is the dominant factor leading to TAC measurement variabilities, which may inform more reproducible and accurate TAC sensor designs in the future.
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