A portable triboelectric spirometer for wireless pulmonary function monitoring

Qinghao Xu; Yunsheng Fang; Qingshen Jing; Ning Hu; Ke Lin; Yifan Pan; Lin Xu; Haiqi Gao; Ming Yuan; Liang Chu; Yanwen Ma; Yannan Xie; Jun Chen; Lianhui Wang

doi:10.1016/j.bios.2021.113329

A portable triboelectric spirometer for wireless pulmonary function monitoring

Biosens Bioelectron. 2021 Sep 1:187:113329. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2021.113329. Epub 2021 May 14.

Authors

Qinghao Xu¹, Yunsheng Fang², Qingshen Jing³, Ning Hu¹, Ke Lin², Yifan Pan⁴, Lin Xu⁵, Haiqi Gao¹, Ming Yuan¹, Liang Chu¹, Yanwen Ma¹, Yannan Xie⁶, Jun Chen⁷, Lianhui Wang⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biosensors, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China.
² Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1TN, UK.
⁴ Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, USA.
⁵ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of New Power Batteries, Collaborative Innovation Center of Biomedical Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biosensors, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China. Electronic address: iamynxie@njupt.edu.cn.
⁷ Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA. Electronic address: jun.chen@ucla.edu.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biosensors, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023, China. Electronic address: iamlhwang@njupt.edu.cn.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a severe acute respiratory syndrome infection has spread rapidly across the world since its emergence in 2019 and drastically altered our way of life. Patients who have recovered from COVID-19 may still face persisting respiratory damage from the virus, necessitating long-term supervision after discharge to closely assess pulmonary function during rehabilitation. Therefore, developing portable spirometers for pulmonary function tests is of great significance for convenient home-based monitoring during recovery. Here, we propose a wireless, portable pulmonary function monitor for rehabilitation care after COVID-19. It is composed of a breath-to-electrical (BTE) sensor, a signal processing circuit, and a Bluetooth communication unit. The BTE sensor, with a compact size and light weight of 2.5 cm³ and 1.8 g respectively, is capable of converting respiratory biomechanical motions into considerable electrical signals. The output signal stability is greater than 93% under 35%-81% humidity, which allows for ideal expiration airflow sensing. Through a wireless communication circuit system, the signals can be received by a mobile terminal and processed into important physiological parameters, such as forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV₁) and forced vital capacity (FVC). The FEV₁/FVC ratio is then calculated to further evaluate pulmonary function of testers. Through these measurement methods, the acquired pulmonary function parameters are shown to exhibit high accuracy (>97%) in comparison to a commercial spirometer. The practical design of the self-powered flow spirometer presents a low-cost and convenient method for pulmonary function monitoring during rehabilitation from COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pulmonary function tests; Self-powered sensors; Spirometers; Triboelectric nanogenerators.

MeSH terms

Biosensing Techniques*
COVID-19*
Humans
SARS-CoV-2
Spirometry
Vital Capacity