An integrated flexible multifunctional wearable electronic device for personal health monitoring and thermal management

Abstract

Recently, wearable pressure sensors have attracted tremendous attention because of their potential applications in intelligent equipment and flexible electronic. Aside from efficient real-time sensing performances, the wearing experience such as comfort and lightweight are also quite important for human health-care monitoring devices or systems. Effectively regulating radiative heating from human body are of interest for improving thermal comfort with a cost-effective approach. Here, we report a new strategy utilizing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as both pressure sensing layer and infrared reflector for fabricating multifunctional wearable electronic device. The as-fabricated device based on face to face structure shows ultrahigh sensitivity of 5.22×105 kPa−1 at 0–30 kPa, and 6.06×104 kPa−1 at 30−100 kPa, respectively. Meanwhile, both measured spectra and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation results demonstrate that such multifunctional devices present an extreme low IR emissivity of ∼ 20 % as well as outstanding self-warming capability. As a result, it not only shows a passive warming effect of 6 °C over the commercial cotton pieces but also exhibits an outstanding Joule heating effect. This approach will promote the development of multifunctional flexible electronic in personal healthcare, thermal regulation and lightweight body armor applications for effective energy savings.