Adhesives for wearable biosensors and sensors

At Zimmer and Peacock we know that wearables are the future of biosensors, health and fitness monitoring. We specialise in the contract design and contract manufacture of biosensors and medical diagnostics including wearable sensors and biosensors. Our wearable biosensor capabilities include: glucose, lactate, sodium, potassium, pH, oxygen, etc. Alongside our understanding of the sensor we also have the electronics for both the sensor and the bluetooth communication. 

 

At ZP we appreciate that the choice of adhesive materials to attach the sensors to the skin is important, and the choice of materials depends on the: application, the skin type, the demographics of the target market, the expected duration of wear.

 

Clearly an adhesive material has a degree of adhesion, which is not static  with time. The adhesivity can increase with time reaching a maximum before the adhesion begins to decrease; at the same time the skin is also replenishing and so skin cells that we initially in place start to shed, and the adhesive can start to peel away.

 

The material scientists have a number of levers to pull when selecting or designing an adhesive material for a wearable biosensor/sensor application this included : class of compound, specific compound, thickness of adhesive etc.

 

In the adjacent video we show four adhesive attached to the same subject, left for 2 hours and then an attempt is made to remove each adhesive, and it is clear that each material has a different degree of tackiness to the skin.