Abstract

Revealing the Secrets of Your Sweat

Annemarijn Steijlen, PhD candidate, Delft University of Technology

Recent advances in sweat sensing systems offer new ways of monitoring biomarkers unobtrusively. Many papers about the development of electrochemical sweat sensors were published recently, which often include a physiological experiment as a proof-of-concept. However, from physiological literature it can be concluded that little is known about how sweat analyte concentrations change over time and how they vary between individuals. Validating new sweat sensors on human subjects is difficult when the variations in analyte concentrations are not known. Therefore, we developed a different approach. Instead of directly building a sensor, a new sweat collection system was created that contains a reservoir array. The system is used to collect sweat during exercise. The sweat in the reservoirs is analysed afterwards with ion chromatography. The system enables integration of a sensor in the system, so that wearable sensor measurements can be compared with the measurements from the lab.