CLASP (Continuous lifestyle awareness through sweat platform): A novel sensor for simultaneous detection of alcohol and glucose from passive perspired sweat

Wearable-IOT based low-cost platforms can enable dynamic lifestyle monitoring through enabling promising and exciting opportunities for wellness and chronic-disease management in personalized environments. Diabetic and pre-diabetic populations can modulate their alcohol intake by tracking their glycemic content continuously to prevent health risks through these platforms. We demonstrate the first technological proof of a combinatorial biosensor for continuous, dynamic monitoring of alcohol and glucose in ultra-low volumes (1-5 mu L) of passive perspired sweat towards developing a wearable-IOT based platform. Non-invasive biosensing in sweat is achieved by a unique gold-zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film electrode stack fabricated on a flexible substrate suitable for wearable applications. The active ZnO sensing region is immobilized with enzyme complexes specific for the detection of alcohol and glucose through non-faradaic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and chronoamperometry (CA). Biomolecular interactions occurring at the electrode-sweat interface are represented by the impedance and capacitive current changes in response to charge modulations arising in the double layer. We also report the detection of alcohol concentrations of 0.01-100 mg/dl and glucose concentrations of 0.01-50 mg/dl present in synthetic sweat and perspired human sweat. The limit of detection obtained for alcohol and glucose was found to be 0.1 mg/dl in perspired human sweat. Cross-reactivity studies revealed that glucose and alcohol did not show any signal response to cross-reactive molecules. Furthermore, the stable temporal response of the combinatorial biosensor on continuous exposure to passive perspired human sweat spiked with alcohol and glucose over a 120-min duration was demonstrated.