Self-powered wearable biosensors for metabolites and electrolytes detection: Harnessing nanogenerators and renewable energy sources

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has ushered in an era where wearable biosensors play a pivotal role in health monitoring through biofluid analysis. By providing continuous, real-time data on bodily fluids, these sensors offer early warning signs of health deterioration, potentially averting catastrophic conditions like brain strokes, severe muscle contractions, and cardiac diseases. The main bottleneck for real-time monitoring of the biosensor in wearable systems is powering, and therefore researchers have devoted strenuous effort to mitigate the aforementioned challenges. The wearable self-powering systems in biosensors contribute to a substantial reduction in overall power consumption in the devices, facilitating the implementation of real-time monitoring sensor technologies. A wide range of self-powered biosensors has been investigated to monitor metabolites (glucose, lactate), electrolytes (sodium, chloride ion), and pH, with a particular interest in those that generate electricity, as they offer advantages in terms of easy fabrication, wearability, and eco-friendliness. This review article stated the recent development of self-powered wearable biosensors based on renewable energy sources, utilizing biofuel and mechanical energy sources including triboelectric nanogenerators and piezoelectric nanogenerators. Moreover, it is also highlighted the principle and the working mechanism of generating power as well as the detection of metabolites based on the powering sources. Finally, several promising strategies of the self-powered biosensor for metabolites detection are summarized to overcome the challenges. These viewpoints are anticipated to propel the development of self-powered sensors and motivate further research.