Superhydrophobic Liquid–Solid Contact Triboelectric Nanogenerator as a Droplet Sensor for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Superhydrophobic surfaces repel water and other liquids such as tissue fluid, blood, urine, and pus, which can open up a new avenue for the development of biomedical devices and has led to promising advances across diverse fields, including plasma separator devices, blood-repellent sensors, vascular stents, and heart valves. Here, the fabrication of superhydrophobic liquid–solid contact triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) and their biomedical applications as droplet sensors are reported. Triboelectrification energy can be captured and released when droplets are colliding or slipping on the superhydrophobic layer. The developed superhydrophobic TENG possesses multiple advantages in terms of simple fabrication, bendability, self-cleaning, self-adhesiveness, high sensitivity, and repellency to not only water but also a variety of solutions, including blood with a contact angle of 158.6°. As a self-powered sensor, the developed prototypes of a drainage bottle droplet sensor and a smart intravenous injection monitor based on the superhydrophobic liquid–solid contact TENG can monitor the clinical drainage operation and intravenous infusion in real time, respectively. These prototypes suggest the potential merit of this superhydrophobic liquid–solid contact TENG in clinical application, paving the way for accurately monitoring clinical drainage operations and intravenous injection or blood transfusion in the future.

Advances in Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Self‐Powered Regenerative Medicine

“…[183][184][185][186][187][188] Recently, TENGs are opening new doors in these areas. [49,171,189,190] Such self-powered sensors can be implemented in detecting an array of physical and chemical parameters [48] such as strain, [191][192][193][194] small vibration, [46,52,195,196] acceleration, [197][198][199] sound, [81,191,200] light, [147] order, [201] and pH. [84] The retina plays a pivotal role in visual recognition which is sensitive to light and transmits informative signals to the [176] Copyright 2018, The Authors.…”

Tailoring Materials with Specific Wettability in Biomedical Engineering

“…So far, the popular chemical methods for surface modification include sol–gel method, layer‐by‐layer technique, self‐assembly, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). [ 2 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 ] With decades of development, these methods have achieved great progress in fabricating various wettability materials in precise and controllable manner, paving the way for further application of these materials.…”

“…In fact, these methods are usually integrated together, and even combined with physical methods for better control over the surface textures as well as chemical compositions. [ 110 , 111 , 112 ] In general, these methods achieve great progress in fabricating wettability materials while each method has their own advantages and disadvantages. Researchers may choose the most appropriate one or integrate these methods according to practical requirements to produce the desired surfaces.…”

Recent Progress in Self-Powered Sensors Based on Triboelectric Nanogenerators

“…Skin wounds are common in everyday life, but bacterial infections can seriously affect healing. Figure 7e shows that Tao et al [55] proposed a flexible TENG patch which can kill nearly 100% of escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and can greatly promote the proliferation and migration of fibroblasts, providing a convenient solution for the treatment of infected wounds. In smart medical devices, self-powered implants can extend the operating time of the device in the body and reduce the need for high-risk repeat surgery.…”