Biomimetic skin-like materials—including electronic and ionic skins—can distinctively perceive multi-stimuli—such as strain, temperature, liquid flow and so on. Currently, multi-stimuli response in a single sensing unit is a highly desirable goal, but its accompaniment of serious interference among signals is difficult to avoid. To address this, a zwitterionic skin-like sensor system that can continuously monitor and differentiate three-stimuli-responsive information in real-time is developed by Prof. Zhang Lei and Prof. Yang Jing’s team from the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology.

Scheme illustration of the sandwich-structured sensor based on multi-response zwitterionic skin for multiple sensation and pro-healing of diabetic wounds.

This unique design of a sandwich-structured sensor system successfully avoids signal interference while exhibiting excellent biocompatibility. Based on this skin sensor system, a smart wound dressing is developed to pro-heal chronic diabetic wounds, and achieve continuous real-time monitoring of three indicators—infection, swelling and blood glucose.

According to the researchers, this work provides a new method of real-time monitoring and the distinction of multi-stimuli response in a wearable device, and may well meet the demand of wound stage and blood glucose monitoring, especially for blood glucose forewarning in diabetic patients. This zwitterionic skin sensory system is not only useful in wound monitoring but also provides a new potential direction for distinction of multiple signals in artificial intelligence.

By the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology

Editor: Eva Yin