An autonomous fabric electrochemical biosensor for efficient health monitoring

As a promising frontier in next-generation healthcare monitoring, smart textiles that are capable of dynamic physiological sensing through sweat analysis represent an emerging paradigm in wearable electronics. However, the inherent inaccessibility of sweat in sedentary individuals and scenarios has restricted our ability to capitalize on this non-invasive and insightful source of molecule-level information. Here, we first present a comfortable, autonomous and integrated iontophoretic biosensing textile system that features an on-demand stimulation skin-interfaced sweat-induction unit. The textile system uses skin-interface stabilized iontophoretic hydrogel electrodes that enhance interface conformability and optimize interface impedance, eliminating the need for high-current stimulation in conventional iontophoresis. By combining biosensing fibers with a stabilized transduction layer design, we show that the resultant biosensing textile system continuously collects multibiomarker data, including glucose, lactate, uric acid and pH levels, for up to 6 hours. This system holds promise for advancing wearable electronics in personalized healthcare, clinical monitoring and remote diagnostics with superior user-friendliness and versatility.