Smart salt-responsive thread for highly sensitive microfluidic glucose detection in sweat

Thread-based microfluidic colorimetric sensors have been deemed a potential tool that may be incorporated into textiles for non-invasive sweat analysis. Nevertheless, their poor performance significantly limits their practical uses in sweat glucose detection down to 20 μM. Herein, a microfluidic glucose sensing device containing a salt-responsive thread is developed for the highly sensitive detection of glucose in human sweat. By grafting a zwitterionic polymer brush-which could react to ionic strength by changing the conformation of the polymer chains from the collapsing state to the stretching state-onto the cotton thread, the salt-responsive thread was created. Compared to the pristine cotton thread, the modified thread has better ion-capture capabilities, a more noticeable swelling effect, and a higher ability to absorb water. These enable a significant enrichment of glucose when the saline solution passes through it. The salt-responsive thread was employed to construct a thread/paper-based microfluidic sensing device for the monitoring of glucose in artificial sweat, exhibiting a sensitivity of -0.255 μM^-1 and a detection limit of 14.7 μM. In comparison to the pristine cotton thread-based device, the performance is significantly superior. Using a hydrophobic fabric and salt-responsive threads, a glucose-sensing headband was prepared for on-body sweat glucose monitoring. With the use of a smartphone-based image analysis system, the headband can detect the concentration of glucose in a volunteer's perspiration. Using the thread-based salt-responsive zwitterionic polymer brush might offer a novel approach to creating wearable sweat sensors with extremely high sensitivity.