New smart fabrics from bioactive inks monitor body and environment by
changing color
Bioactive inks printed on wearable textiles can map conditions over the
entire surface of the body

Date:
June 5, 2020
Source:
Tufts University
Summary:
Researchers developed biomaterial-based inks that respond to and
quantify chemicals released from the body or in the environment
by changing color.

Multiple inks can be screen printed onto clothes or even face masks
at high resolution, providing a detailed map of human response
or exposure.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers at Tufts University's School of Engineering have developed biomaterial-based inks that respond to and quantify chemicals released
from the body (e.g. in sweat and potentially other biofluids) or in
the surrounding environment by changing color. The inks can be screen
printed onto textiles such as clothes, shoes, or even face masks in
complex patterns and at high resolution, providing a detailed map of
human response or exposure. The advance in wearable sensing, reported
in Advanced Materials, could simultaneously detect and quantify a wide
range of biological conditions, molecules and, possibly, pathogens over
the surface of the body using conventional garments and uniforms.


==========================================================================
"The use of novel bioactive inks with the very common method of screen
printing opens up promising opportunities for the mass-production of soft, wearable fabrics with large numbers of sensors that could be applied
to detect a range of conditions," said Fiorenzo Omenetto, corresponding
author and the Frank C.

Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts' School of Engineering. "The
fabrics can end up in uniforms for the workplace, sports clothing, or
even on furniture and architectural structures." Wearable sensing devices
have attracted considerable interest in monitoring human performance and health. Many such devices have been invented incorporating electronics in wearable patches, wristbands, and other configurations that monitor either localized or overall physiological information such as heart rate or blood glucose. The research presented by the Tufts team takes a different, complementary approach -- non-electronic, colorimetric detection of a theoretically very large number of analytes using sensing garments that
can be distributed to cover very large areas: anything from a patch to
the entire body, and beyond.

The components that make the sensing garments possible are biologically activated silk-based inks. The soluble silk substrate in these ink
formulations can be modified by embedding various "reporter" molecules
-- such as pH sensitive indicators, or enzymes like lactate oxidase to
indicate levels of lactate in sweat. The former could be an indicator
of skin health or dehydration, while the latter could indicate levels
of fatigue of the wearer.

Many other derivatives of the inks can be created due to the versatility
of the silk fibroin protein by modifying it with active molecules such
as chemically sensitive dyes, enzymes, antibodies and more. While the
reporter molecules could be unstable on their own, they can become
shelf-stable when embedded within the silk fibroin in the ink formulation.

The inks are formulated for screen printing applications by combining
with a thickener (sodium alginate) and a plasticizer (glycerol). The
screen printable bio-inks can be used like any ink developed for screen printing, and so can be applied not just to clothing but also to various surfaces such as wood, plastics and paper to generate patterns ranging
from hundreds of microns to tens of meters. While the changes in color presented by the inks can provide a visual cue to the presence or absence
of an analyte, use of camera imaging analysis scanning the garments or
other material can gather more precise information on both quantity and
high resolution, sub-millimeter mapping.

The technology builds upon earlier work by the same researchers developing bioactive silk inks formulated for inkjet-printing to create petri
dishes, paper sensors, and laboratory gloves that can indicate bacterial contamination by changing colors.

"The screen printing approach provides the equivalent of having a large, multiplexed arrangement of sensors covering extensive areas of the body,
if worn as a garment, or even on large surfaces such as room interiors,"
said Giusy Matzeu, research assistant professor of biomedical engineering
at Tufts School of Engineering and first author of the paper. "Coupled
with image analysis, we can obtain a high resolution mapof color reactions
over a large area and gain more insight on overall physiological or environmental state. In theory, we could extend this method to track air quality, or support environmental monitoring for epidemiology." The fact
that the method uses common printing techniques also opens up avenues
in creative applications -- something explored by Laia Mogas-Soldevila, architect and recent PhD graduate at Tufts in Omenetto's SilkLab. Mogas- Soldevila has helped to create beautiful tapestries, displaying them
in museums across the United States and Europe. The displays are
interactive, allowing visitors to spray different, non-toxic chemicals
onto the fabric and watch the patterns transform. "This is really a great example of how art and engineering can gain from and inspire each other,"
said Mogas-Soldevila. "The engineered inks open up a new dimension in responsive, interactive tapestries and surfaces, while the 1,000-year old
art of screen printing has provided a foundation well suited to the need
for a modern high resolution, wearable sensing surface." The research
was supported by grants from the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research,
Development and Engineering Center (W911QY-15-2-0001), the Office of
Naval Research (N00014-19-1-2399), and a gift from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Tufts_University. Note: Content may
be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Giusy Matzeu, Laia Mogas‐Soldevila, Wenyi Li, Arin Naidu,
Trent H.

Turner, Roger Gu, Patricia R. Blumeris, Patrick Song,
Daniel G. Pascal, Giulia Guidetti, Meng Li, Fiorenzo
G. Omenetto. Large‐Scale Patterning of Reactive Surfaces for
Wearable and Environmentally Deployable Sensors. Advanced Materials,
2020; 2001258 DOI: 10.1002/ adma.202001258 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200605111234.htm

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