Transparent PEDOT:PSS/PDMS Leaf Tattoos for Multiplexed Plant Health Monitoring and Energy Harvesting

The development of non-invasive sensors for individualised plant monitoring has become essential in smart farming to increase crop production. However current approaches are focused on the measurement of soil parameters instead, which cannot provide direct information about plant health. Moreover, equipment used for the direct monitoring of plant health are costly with complex operation, hindering their use by the wider community of farmers. This work reports for the first time the development of a flexible and highly transparent sensor, based on thin conductive PEDOT:PSS/PDMS hybrid films directly deposited onto leaves. The films were fabricated by aerosol deposition and could operate under two different modes. The first mode is used for the determination of plant dryness and concentration of ions. The second mode is used as a triboelectric generator to generate up to 7.2 µW cm−2 electrical power through the friction of the sensors with a leaf. The device was assembled using a low-cost (GBP < 70) microcontroller incorporating environmental sensors, and an intuitive interface was designed for operation. The final sensor could determine the ionic strength at the millimolar level by means of the impedance of electrodes. This performance allowed the study of differences in ionic content and water availability in tomato leaves during day–night cycles. The high stability of the sensors also allowed the long-term monitoring of plant health. Using this technology, a decrease in the leaf ionic strength due to the lack of electrolytes was observed after watering with deionised water for 2 days. Upon supplementation with fertiliser, the recorded ionic strength and leaf water content were similar to the original values prior to the use of DI water, demonstrating the applicability of the device in the early detection of stress factors that could decrease crop production.