Self-powered sensors for biomarker detection

Abstract

Patient-friendly wearable and implantable sensors based on biomarkers play an important role in health monitoring and disease diagnosis with telemedicine and personalized medicine. However, due to the limited life of batteries, the long-term real-time detection of these biomarkers for a general sensor remains a huge challenge. The introduction of self-powered electronic devices is a possible approach to solve the problem of long-term wearability. This approach can convert energy from the sunlight, environmental heat, and mechanical motion or chemical energy of the wearer into electrical energy and supply it to the sensor unit to detect biochemical signals. This strategy can develop advanced functions for sensors, such as extended life, miniaturization, and flexibility to improve comfort and wearability, and functions combined with wireless data transmission and mobile data processing. In this review, we summarized the existing self-powered technology and the mechanism of biosensors. We reviewed recent progress of self-powered biomarker sensors including exocrine fluid sensors and extracellular fluid sensors from the working principle, output properties and detection performance index. And the challenges and outlooks of self-powered biomarker sensors are also presented.