Following a research initiative, researchers at Northwestern University and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an electronic device. The device can be used to measure sweat rate, skin temperature, and sweat loss in real-time. The device could help to monitor sweat-related dynamics more reliably and efficiently over time, describes the paper on the device published in Nature Electronics.
Meanwhile, the monitoring of sweat dynamics such as sweat temperature, sweat rate, and cumulative sweat loss is useful for clinical purposes. It could help doctors to detect thermoregulatory conditions and other illnesses that are related to heat stress.
“Interestingly, to develop soft microfluidic devices is the objective of the researchers. These devices adhere to the skin to capture, store, and perform biomarker analysis of serene, microliter volumes of sweat as it is discharged through the action of eccrine glands,” stated one of the researchers.
In fact, a previous research in this area relied on the use of visual/image-based determination. The extent of this is filling of sweat into microchannel network.
Importantly, the overall objective of the study is to develop a digital and wireless platform that could help with the course of the filling process of sweat without actually requiring to examine the device. For this reason, the device could be highly valuable for numerous applications, to track sweat-related processes, for instance. Nonetheless, the device would be useful among health workers or first responders who would generally wear the devices under protective gear.
Elaborately, the new system harnesses a non-contact thermal based format. This is to track the flow of sweat directly from the surface of the skin.
