Reduced Graphene Oxide-Polypyrrole Aerogel-Based Coaxial Heterogeneous Microfiber Enables Ultrasensitive Pressure Monitoring of Living Organisms

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Feb 3;13(4):5425-5434. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c19949. Epub 2021 Jan 26.

Abstract

Pressure sensors for living organisms can monitor both the movement behavior of the organism and pressure changes of the organ, and they have vast perspectives for the health management information platform and disease diagnostics/treatment through the micropressure changes of organs. Although pressure sensors have been widely integrated with e-skin or other wearable systems for health monitoring, they have not been approved for comprehensive surveillance and monitoring of living organisms due to their unsatisfied sensing performance. To solve the problem, here, we introduce a novel structural design strategy to manufacture reduced graphene oxide-polypyrrole aerogel-based microfibers with a typical coaxial heterogeneous structure, which significantly enhances the sensitivity, resolution, and stability of the derived pressure microsensors. The as-fabricated pressure microsensors exhibit ultrahigh sensitivities of 12.84, 18.27, and 4.46 kPa-1 in the pressure ranges of 0-20, 20-40, and 40-65 Pa, respectively, high resolution (0.2 Pa), and good stability in 450 cycles. Furthermore, the microsensor is applied to detect the movement behavior and organic micropressure changes for mice and serves as a platform for monitoring micropressure for the integrative diagnosis both in vivo and in vitro of organisms.

Keywords: coaxial heterogeneous microfiber; conducting polymer; graphene; in vivo test; pressure microsensor.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biosensing Techniques / instrumentation
  • Blood Pressure
  • Electric Conductivity
  • Equipment Design
  • Female
  • Graphite / chemistry*
  • Mice
  • Monitoring, Physiologic / instrumentation
  • Polymers / chemistry*
  • Pressure
  • Pyrroles / chemistry*
  • Textiles / analysis
  • Wearable Electronic Devices*

Substances

  • Polymers
  • Pyrroles
  • graphene oxide
  • polypyrrole
  • Graphite