Silk is the ideal material for IoT wearable sensors to improve conductivity

From smart Socks to fitness suits, sensors equipped with sensors to monitor human health are increasingly popular, and scientists are working to replace semiconductors with silk as a material for manufacturing IoT wearable sensors. One of the foreseeable possibilities is as an integrated wireless system that allows physicians to more easily monitor patients from a distance so that they can be disposed of more quickly than ever before.

According to ScienceDaily, the research team of Tsinghua University in Beijing reported its experimental work at the 254th Annual Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in August 2017, with the goal of using silk as a material to create a wearable with higher sensitivity and flexibility. Body sensor. Based on preliminary results, the researchers hope to find ways to build a set of integrated sensors that are driven by nano-generators and that use silk as a material to operate autonomously.

Wearable body sensors have become the latest must-have technology and have great potential for growth. However, semiconductor products are inherently limited by ductility and poor flexibility, especially when making wearable body sensors, which cannot balance sensitivity and ductility.

Silk is stronger than steel, its elasticity is better than that of nylon (Nylon), it is biocompatible and light, and it has the opportunity to be the ideal material for developing a new generation of high-sensitivity and ductile multi-purpose wearable sensors. Monitor various body functions in real time.

The research team said that the current silk sensor has great potential for development and suggests that it may be used to create more realistic robots that can sense touch, temperature or humidity, and even distinguish between different human voices. However, the conductivity of silk is not good. In order to solve this critical problem, the researchers conducted various tests and hoped to find out that the conductivity of the silk can be improved to the extent that it can be applied to the body sensing device.

The first way the researchers tried was to place the silk in an inert gas atmosphere of 1,112 to 5,432 degrees Fahrenheit, thereby filling the silk with N-doped carbon and some graphitized particles. . Using these conductive silks, the researchers developed pressure sensors, dual-mode sensors that measure both pressure and temperature, and strain sensors that measure Force.

The second way the researchers tried was to mix the graphene (Graphene) or carbon nanotube (Carbon Nanotube) into the silk, which naturally contained some of the nanoparticles in the silk, but so far, it is not possible in this way. Produces conductive silk, but the researchers have not given up the experiment, hoping to finally produce conductive silk in this way.