Tag Archives: Kagan Kerman

University of Toronto’s (Canada) smiley face tattoo/sensor

Researchers at the University of Toronto have created a medical sensor that can be applied to the skin like a temporary tattoo.

University of Toronto Scarborough student Vinci Hung helped create the smiley face sensor shown here in the box at upper right (photo by Ken Jones)

The Dec. 3, 2012 news item on ScienceDaily notes,

A medical sensor that attaches to the skin like a temporary tattoo could make it easier for doctors to detect metabolic problems in patients and for coaches to fine-tune athletes’ training routines. And the entire sensor comes in a thin, flexible package shaped like a smiley face.

“We wanted a design that could conceal the electrodes,” says Vinci Hung, a PhD candidate in the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences at UTSC [University of Toronto Scarborough], who helped create the new sensor. “We also wanted to showcase the variety of designs that can be accomplished with this fabrication technique.”

The Dec. 3, 2012 University of Toronto news release by Kurt Kleiner, which originated the news item, provides details about how the sensor/tattoo is fabricated and how it functions on the skin,

The new tattoo-based solid-contact ion-selective electrode (ISE) is made using standard screen printing techniques and commercially available transfer tattoo paper, the same kind of paper that usually carries tattoos of Spiderman or Disney princesses. In the case of the smiley face sensor, the “eyes” function as the working and reference electrodes, and the “ears” are contacts to which a measurement device can connect.

The sensor Hung helped make can detect changes in the skin’s pH levels in response to metabolic stress from exertion. Similar devices, called ion-selective electrodes (ISEs), are already used by medical researchers and athletic trainers. They can give clues to underlying metabolic diseases such as Addison’s disease, or simply signal whether an athlete is fatigued or dehydrated during training. The devices are also useful in the cosmetics industry for monitoring skin secretions.

But existing devices can be bulky, or hard to keep adhered to sweating skin. The new tattoo-based sensor stayed in place during tests, and continued to work even when the people wearing them were exercising and sweating extensively. The tattoos were applied in a similar way to regular transfer tattoos, right down to using a paper towel soaked in warm water to remove the base paper.

To make the sensors, Hung and her colleagues used a standard screen printer to lay down consecutive layers of silver, carbon fibre-modified carbon and insulator inks, followed by electropolymerization of aniline to complete the sensing surface.

By using different sensing materials, the tattoos can also be modified to detect other components of sweat, such as sodium, potassium or magnesium, all of which are of potential interest to researchers in medicine and cosmetology.

You can find the reserchers’ article in the Royal Society’s Analyst journal,

Tattoo-based potentiometric ion-selective sensors for epidermal pH monitoring
Amay J. Bandodkar ,  Vinci W. S. Hung ,  Wenzhao Jia ,  Gabriela Valdés-Ramírez ,  Joshua R. Windmiller ,  Alexandra G. Martinez ,  Julian Ramírez ,  Garrett Chan ,  Kagan Kerman and Joseph Wang in Analyst, 2013,138, 123-128 DOI: 10.1039/C2AN36422K

The article is open access but you do need to register for a free account with the Royal Society’s RSC [ublishing platform.