TY - JOUR
T1 - A Soft Sponge Sensor for Multimodal Sensing and Distinguishing of Pressure, Strain, and Temperature
AU - Lo, Li Wei
AU - Zhao, Junyi
AU - Wan, Haochuan
AU - Wang, Yong
AU - Chakrabartty, Shantanu
AU - Wang, Chuan
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-005417). The authors acknowledge the Washington University in St. Louis Institute of Materials Science and Engineering for the use of instruments and staff assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/2/23
Y1 - 2022/2/23
N2 - Soft wearable sensors are essential components for applications such as motion tracking, human-machine interface, and soft robots. However, most of the reported sensors are either specifically designed to target an individual stimulus or capable of responding to multiple stimuli (e.g., pressure and strain) but without the necessary selectivity to distinguish those stimuli. Here we report an elastomeric sponge-based sensor that can respond to and distinguish three different kinds of stimuli: pressure, strain, and temperature. The sensor utilizes a porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge fabricated from a sugar cube sacrificial template, which was subsequently coated with a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) conductive polymer through a low-cost dip-coating process. Responses to different types of stimuli can be distinguished by simultaneously recording resistance and capacitance changes. Because pressure, tensile strain, and temperature change result in different trends in resistance and capacitance change, those stimuli can be clearly distinguished from each other by simultaneously measuring the resistance and capacitance of the sensor. We have also studied the effect of the pore size on the sensor performance and have found that the sponge sensor with smaller pores generally offers greater resistance change and better sensitivity. As a proof-of-concept, we have demonstrated the use of the porous sponge sensor on an artificial hand for object detection, gesture recognition, and temperature sensing applications.
AB - Soft wearable sensors are essential components for applications such as motion tracking, human-machine interface, and soft robots. However, most of the reported sensors are either specifically designed to target an individual stimulus or capable of responding to multiple stimuli (e.g., pressure and strain) but without the necessary selectivity to distinguish those stimuli. Here we report an elastomeric sponge-based sensor that can respond to and distinguish three different kinds of stimuli: pressure, strain, and temperature. The sensor utilizes a porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge fabricated from a sugar cube sacrificial template, which was subsequently coated with a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) conductive polymer through a low-cost dip-coating process. Responses to different types of stimuli can be distinguished by simultaneously recording resistance and capacitance changes. Because pressure, tensile strain, and temperature change result in different trends in resistance and capacitance change, those stimuli can be clearly distinguished from each other by simultaneously measuring the resistance and capacitance of the sensor. We have also studied the effect of the pore size on the sensor performance and have found that the sponge sensor with smaller pores generally offers greater resistance change and better sensitivity. As a proof-of-concept, we have demonstrated the use of the porous sponge sensor on an artificial hand for object detection, gesture recognition, and temperature sensing applications.
KW - conductive polymer
KW - multimodal sensor
KW - porous PDMS
KW - stretchable electronics
KW - wearable sensors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125212483&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsami.1c21003
DO - 10.1021/acsami.1c21003
M3 - Article
C2 - 35156792
AN - SCOPUS:85125212483
VL - 14
SP - 9570
EP - 9578
JO - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
SN - 1944-8244
IS - 7
ER -