Research Team Discovers Way to Build Flexible Wearables for Medical Use
A research team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said it developed a way to build safe, nontoxic gold wires onto thin plastic film, clearing the way for wearable devices that are flexible enough to be worn…
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on or inside a human body. In a Wednesday report, NIST said the findings could open a path for electronic devices that monitor health long term without exposing a person to harmful chemicals. The medical field has been studying personalized medicine with sensors as a way to keep track of real-time changes in the body, from potassium fluctuations to blood sugar levels, that could mark the onset of a disease before it’s detectable by a doctor, it said. NIST biomedical engineer Darwin Reyes-Hernandez found that a commercially available porous polyester membrane with the feel of plastic wrap could conduct electricity through affixed gold wires. During research, pores in the material kept gold from cracking, allowing the wires to continue to conduct after bending, Reyes-Hernandez said. The porous membrane’s electrodes showed even higher conductivity than their counterparts on rigid surfaces, an unexpected benefit, said NIST. Next steps are to test changes in conductivity long term after “many bends and twists” and to build a sensor out of the electrode-coated membrane to explore real-world use, it said. The thin membrane could fit into “very small spaces,” said Reyes-Hernandez.