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Scientists said self-healing “electronic skin” that stretches in a circuit and attaches to the human body could be a more environmentally friendly alternative to current wearable devices.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States are developing a thin, skin-like wearable device that they say is fully recyclable and has the ability to repair itself.
Electronic skin can perform sensory activities such as monitoring your daily step count or measuring your body temperature and heart rate and can be shaped to fit any part of the body.
“If you want to wear it like a watch, you can put it on your wrist,” said Jianliang Xiao, an associate professor in the mechanical engineering department of the University of Colorado Boulder. “If you want to wear it as a necklace, you can put it around your neck.”
Learn more about wearable devices:
The team told their work, published in the magazine Advances in science, could lead to a future where recyclable high-tech leather allows people to collect accurate data on their bodies while reducing electronic waste.
It is estimated that humans will have produced more than 55 million tons of discarded smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices by 2021.
“Our solution for e-waste is to start with how we make the device, not from the end point, or when it’s already been thrown away,” said Prof. Xiao. “We want a device that is easy to recycle.”
The researchers used a screen printing technique to create a liquid metal wire network for the circuit. They then used two thin films made of a self-healing material, known as polyimine, to cover the circuit.
The researchers said the resulting device is “a little thicker than a patch” that can be applied to the skin using heat. It can also stretch 60% in any direction without disrupting the electronics inside, the team said.
“Smart watches are functionally beautiful, but they’re still a big chunk of metal on a band,” said Prof Wei Zhang, of the University of Colorado Boulder Chemistry Department. “If we want a truly wearable device, ideally it will be a thin film that can comfortably fit your body.”
The team said their electronic skin has the ability to heal on its own in 13 minutes if damaged, the bonds holding the polyimino material together will begin to reform.
“Those bonds help form a network through the cut. Then they start growing together. It’s similar to skin healing, but we’re talking about covalent chemical bonds here, ”said Prof. Zhang.
However, electronic skin is a long way from being able to compete with wearables on the market, one of the main limitations being that it still needs an external power source to function.
“We haven’t realized all these complex functions yet. But we are marching towards that feature of the device, ”said Dr. Xiao.
Reader’s Questions and Answers: Does a human heart have a finite number of beats?
Asked by: Tony Ferrer, High Wycombe
Yes. At an average of 80 beats per minute, most of us will manage fewer than four billion beats in our lifetime. But you don’t die because you run out of heartbeats – you run out of heartbeats because you die.
Among mammals, the number of life-time heartbeats of different species is fairly constant. So hamster hearts beat 400 times per minute and live for about four years, or 840 million beats, and an elephant can handle 35 bpm for 35 years, or about 640 million beats in total. These numbers are similar, but that’s only because animals with faster heart rates are also smaller and more at risk of predation and starvation. Their lifespans have evolved to compensate for this by reproducing early and often: “they live fast, they die young”. The heart muscle can only repair itself very slowly, so eventually each heart will wear out but not after a specific number of beats.
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