Microfluidic Nonwoven-Based Device as a Potential Biosensor for Sweat Analysis

Abstract

Monitoring body fluids such as sweat composition can provide useful information about the physiological status. Physiological monitoring of body fluids such as sweat with a textile-based system has the advantage of being non-invasive and easily accessible and such monitoring is beneficial to indicate information about body's physiological status. In the present study, it is aimed to design a textile-based system with non-invasive methods which can be used to monitor a sportsman's performance. A novel, disposable and wearable biochemical analytical device was designed and fabricated by patterning micro channels and reservoirs using SU-8 photoresist through photolithography technique on an absorbant bicomponent Evolon® nonwoven substrate. It was obtained that hydrophilic reservoirs were well defined and demarcated by hydrophobic barriers. Therefore, no liquid leakage was observed around the reservoirs which was crucial for achieving a proper enzyme immobilization and the successful detection of the color change after the simulated sweat was deposited on the hydrophilic reservoir areas. Analyte optimization studies revealed that color change became more evident with the increasing analyte concentration until 20 mM and started to decrease with further increase due to analyte inhibition. Also, on textile fabrics, color densities started to decrease after 40 mM analyte concentration.

Electrochemiluminescence detection in microfluidic cloth-based analytical devices

“…Up to now, several methods have been well developed for fabrication of μCADs, including weaving (Bhandari et al, 2011;Owens et al, 2011;Vatansever et al, 2012), batik painting (Nilghaz et al, 2012(Nilghaz et al, , 2015Bagherbaigi et al, 2014;Malon et al, 2014), stereo-stitching (Xing et al, 2013), wax screen-printing (Guan et al, 2015), and photolithography (Wang et al, 2014;Baysal et al, 2014aBaysal et al, , 2014bBaysal et al, , 2015Wu and Zhang, 2015). The as-manufactured μCADs combine the simplicity of cloth strip tests and the complexity of the conventional lab-on-chip devices, and as a result become a class of microfluidic systems.…”

“…The as-manufactured μCADs combine the simplicity of cloth strip tests and the complexity of the conventional lab-on-chip devices, and as a result become a class of microfluidic systems. Moreover, these μCADs are capable of performing a series of biochemical assays or other applications, such as immunoassay (Bhandari et al, 2011;Bagherbaigi et al, 2014), detection of glucose or protein in artificial urine (AU) (Nilghaz et al, 2012(Nilghaz et al, , 2015Wu and Zhang, 2015), assay of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) (Baysal et al, 2015;Guan et al, 2015), lactate measurement in saliva (Malon et al, 2014) or phosphate buffer solution (PBS) (Baysal et al, 2014a(Baysal et al, , 2014b, removal of sweat on an artificial skin surface (Xing et al, 2013), pH sensitive liquid transport (Vatansever et al, 2012), and liquid-liquid extraction (Owens et al, 2011).…”

“…Possibly because of its simplicity, colorimetric detection is the most used method in μCADs (Bhandari et al, 2011;Nilghaz et al, 2012Nilghaz et al, , 2015Bagherbaigi et al, 2014;Baysal et al, 2014aBaysal et al, , 2014bBaysal et al, , 2015Wu and Zhang, 2015), where specific reagents are applied to the device and the developed color intensity and/or hue correlates with analyte concentration. In general, however, only qualitative or semiquantitative measurement can be obtained.…”

A low-cost, ultraflexible cloth-based microfluidic device for wireless electrochemiluminescence application

“…We and others have developed several fabrication methods for μCADs, including weaving [8,9,11,12], cutting [13], batik painting [6,7,14,15], stereo-stitching [10], wax screen-printing [16][17][18], and photolithography [19][20][21][22][23]. Cloth is a viable material for the development of analytical devices due to its low material and manufacture costs, ability to wick assay fluids by capillary forces, and potential for patterning multiplexed channel geometries.…”

“…We and others have developed several fabrication methods for μCADs, including weaving [8,9,11,12], cutting [13], batik painting [6,7,14,15], stereo-stitching [10], wax screen-printing [16][17][18], and photolithography [19][20][21][22][23]. We and others have developed several fabrication methods for μCADs, including weaving [8,9,11,12], cutting [13], batik painting [6,7,14,15], stereo-stitching [10], wax screen-printing [16][17][18], and photolithography [19][20][21][22][23].…”