Wearable Chemical Sensors: Present Challenges and Future Prospects

Wearable sensors have received considerable interest over the past decade owing to their tremendous promise for monitoring the wearers’ health, fitness, and their surroundings. However, only limited attention has been directed at developing wearable chemical sensors that offer more comprehensive information about a wearer’s well-being. The development of wearable chemical sensors faces multiple challenges on various fronts. This perspective reviews key challenges and technological gaps impeding the successful realization of effective wearable chemical sensor systems, related to materials, power, analytical procedure, communication, data acquisition, processing, and security. Size, rigidity, and operational requirements of present chemical sensors are incompatible with wearable technology. Sensor stability and on-body sensor surface regeneration constitute key analytical challenges. Similarly, present wearable power sources are incapable of meeting the requirements for wearable electronics owing to their low energy densities and slow recharging. Several energy-harvesting methodologies have inherent issues, including inconsistent power supply and limited stability. There are also major challenges pertaining to handling and securing the big data generated by wearable sensors. These include achieving high data transfer rates and efficient data mining. Efforts must also be made toward developing next generation cryptologic algorithms for ensuring data security and user privacy. The challenges facing the field of wearable chemical sensors, and wearable sensors, in general, can thus be addressed only by a multidisciplinary approach where researchers from diverse fields work in unison. The article discusses these challenges and their potential solutions along with future prospects.