Zhou  Weixin, a doctoral candidate of School of Material Science and  Engineering of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications  (NJUPT), has issued his research achievements on the world-renowned  periodical ACS Nano as the first author, which has then been given a  special report by the American Chemical& Engineering NEWS (C&EN)  with the headline “Breathable electronics could monitor our health  long-term”. Funded by the International Exchange Foundation for Building  First-Class Discipline, Zhou received united training at North Carolina  State University in 2018. He combined the previous porous electrode  preparation technology (ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2016,  17, 11122; Advanced Materials Technologies, 2019, 4, 1800698) and the  epidermal electronic device of his research group at NCSU, and  successfully prepared the Gas-permeable, Ultrathin, Stretchable  Epidermal Electronics with Porous Electrodes. NJUPT is the first unit of  the paper. Professor Ma Yanwen and Professor Zhu Yong of NCSU are joint  corresponding authors. Postdoctoral researcher Yao Shanshan (North  Carolina State University, Stony Brook University, New York) is the  co-first author of the paper, doctoral candidate Wang Hongyu (NCSU) the  third, doctoral candidate Du Qingchuan (NJUPT) the fourth.

Epidermal  Electronics, an essential part of flexible electronic, is a kind of  electronic device which can be implanted into human body. This kind of  electronic device is widely used in medical treatment and health and  man-machine interface. However, the majority of epidermal electronics  known nowadays are prepared on non-porous solid polymer backings (such  as polydimethylsiloxane, polyethylene terephthalate and polyamide). On  account of the lack of gas permeability, these materials can not only  prevent the volatile components of skin secretion like sweat and tear  from volatilizing, but also can lower the comfortability of wearing.  What’s worse, they can result in allergy. Furthermore, these materials  are so hard that they cannot touch the skin tightly and may fall out  easily if they are worn for a long period, which is unfavorable for the  collection of bio-electricity signals. As a result, it’s significant to  develop new materials with soft breathability as backing for long-time application of epidermal electronics.

To  address the bottlenecks in the development, the research group combined  the experience of Professor Ma’s group in preparation of flexible  materials by respiration diagram method with Professor Zhu’s group in  the preparation and application of flexible electronics, and put forward  the theory of preparing epidermal electronics by means of respiration  diagram method, and finally successfully created the porous ultrathin  breathable electrode. This kind of electrode has a good permeability,  which allows the volatility of sweat. What’s more, it’s so thin (thinner  than 10 micrometer) that it can stick to human skin perfectly and  improve the monitor quality of biological signals. The research team has  achieved good results using these ultra-thin breathable electrodes in  bioelectric electrodes and touch sensor electrode, respectively.

It’s  worth mentioning that people can wear this material for longer than a  week without any allergies. This material can also be integrated on  fabrics as touching electrodes with Bluetooth controller, and then be  made into sleeve lets with function of wireless control, which can  control part of the functions of keyboards when corresponded with  computers.

Up  to now, this research has been reported by tens of foreign media. As of  press time, the Altmetric (which is used to evaluate the social  influence) of the paper has been up to 146.