Recent Progress in Wearable Fully Textile Chemical Sensors

Abstract

AbstractIn the new era of Internet of Things, there is a great demand for the development of novel chemical wearable sensors, in particular, for personalized medical diagnostics with point‐of‐care devices. This paper provides an overview on the recent developments in this field, focusing on fully textile chemical sensors, i.e., sensors directly incorporated into a garment/fabric/fiber. The recent results are summarized by grouping them in three broad categories according to their working principle: (i) electrochemical sensors; (ii) transistor‐based sensors; and (iii) resistance‐based sensors. Wearable chemical sensors can be used to detect external dangerous vapor/agents, or to control and monitor the concentration of specific compounds in biofluids for safety and healthcare applications. One of the main issues of such applications is sensor operation in a complex medium containing many interfering compounds. To this end, recent novel approaches to enhance the selectivity of fully textile wearable sensors are reviewed: enzyme‐based approach, selective membrane, and a potentiodynamic method. Finally, a critical overview is given about the major open issues that have to be overcome in order to reach a high technology readiness level.