Enhanced Power Generation from the Interaction between Sweat and Electrodes for Human Health Monitoring

Power generation from human sweat has attracted great attention due to its potential application in waste energy scavenging. However, the development of methods to generate sufficient electricity from sweat to power electronic devices for health monitoring remains a major challenge. Here, we report a wearable sweat-based electricity generator (SEG), in which the power generation mechanism is based on the redox reaction between sweat and electrodes. Due to the increase in oxygen adsorption, both the output current and power of SEG with single-walled carbon nanotubes modified electrode can be remarkably enhanced by 5.6 and 14.7 times compared to SEG with a nanotube-free electrode, respectively. The SEGs have been first utilized to power a wireless heart-rate sensor for sustainably transmitting heart-rate data to a smart phone. Moreover, self-powered sensing of lactic acid has been achieved by electric signals with the current sensitivity of 11.79 mmol·L–1·mA–1, demonstrating applications in human health care.