A Portable Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Real-Time Respiration Monitoring

Zhicheng Zhang,Shurong Dong,Weipeng Xuan,Jiwei Zhang,Huagang Wang,Zhiwei Hu,He Zhang,Jikui Luo

doi:10.1186/s11671-019-3187-4

Abstract

As a reliable indicator of human physiological health, respiratory rate has been utilized in more and more cases for prediction and diagnosis of potential respiratory diseases and the respiratory dysfunction caused by cystic fibrosis. However, compared with smart mobile electronics, traditional clinical respiration monitoring systems is not convenient to work as a household wearable device for real-time respiration monitoring in daily life due to its cumbersome structure, complex operability, and reliance on external power sources. Thus, we propose a wearable wireless respiration sensor based on lateral sliding mode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to monitor respiratory rates by sensing the variation of the abdominal circumference. In this paper, we validate the possibility of the device as a respiration monitoring sensor via an established theoretical model and investigate the output performance of the sensor via a series of mechanical tests. Furtherly, the applications of the respiration sensor in different individuals, different breathing rhythms, different active states, and wireless transmission have been verified by a lot of volunteer tests. All the results demonstrate the potential of the proposed wearable sensor as a new alternative for detecting and monitoring real-time respiratory rates with general applicability and sensitivity.

Highlights

Respiratory rate, as one of the most important and reliable indicators directly reflecting human physiological health, may provide key information for the prediction and diagnosis of potential respiratory diseases like obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and the respiratory dysfunction caused by cystic fibrosis [8–11]
The device is composed of a wearable bilayer belt, a sliding mode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) sensor built in the belt, and a wireless transmission system
Theoretical analyses were performed to predict the output signals of the TENG and validate the possibility of the TENG to work as a respiration sensor

Summary

Introduction

Accompanied with the global climate deterioration, increasing serious air pollution and the aggravation tendency of aged population, the human health, especially the health of the respiratory system, is exposed to more and more threats [1–3]. Respiratory rate, as one of the most important and reliable indicators directly reflecting human physiological health, may provide key information for the prediction and diagnosis of potential respiratory diseases like obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and the respiratory dysfunction caused by cystic fibrosis [8–11]. Compared to some relatively mature bioenergy scavenging technologies like electromagnetic [19, 20] and piezoelectric [21–25], triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) [26–30], with the merits of light weight, high density of energy, and high sensing sensitivity, possess better potential in applications as bioenergy harvesters, wearable electronics, and self-powered health monitoring devices. The TENG-based energy harvesters are more capable in scavenging bioenergy in working environment with the bandwidth of frequency below 10 Hz like human breath [31, 32], and the materials used for TENGs are lead

Methods

Results

Conclusion