Wearable microfluidic sweat collection platform with a calorimetric flow rate sensor for realtime and long-term sweat rate measurements

Abstract

This work presents the design and fabrication of a wearable microfluidic patch-based system for sweat collection with a calorimetric flow rate sensor based on heat convection for measuring sweat rate (SR). The effects were predicted using a 3D multi-physics simulator and were verified on a fabricated patch made of polyimide layers. The sensor can detect surface temperature gradients of 302–312 K caused by fluid flowing thru the microfluidic channels at a rate of 0.5–23 µg s−1 that fall within the physiological range of SR. Meanwhile, the relation between flow rate and temperature gradient is highly linear (Pearson r2 = 0.999) and repeatable. This work also demonstrates a low-cost method for patterning microfluidic channels on flexible substrates which can be used for mass production of wearable patches.