Recycled Iontronic from Discarded Chewed Gum for Personalized Healthcare Monitoring and Intelligent Information Encryption

With the explosive development of smart wearable devices, a serious situation that a large amount of energy waste and environmental pollution caused by electronic discarding needs to be solved urgently. Here, as a throwaway waste material, a chewed gum can be reused for the preparation of wearable iontronics simply. A new gum sensor was constructed by regularly stretching a chewed gum in 6 M NaCl aqueous or even a Chinese edible salt solution for increasing the ionic conductivity. This gum sensor can be shaped arbitrarily, and the preparation process is green, pollution-free, with low energy consumption, and repeatable. Herein, this gum sensor can be utilized for real-time human healthcare monitoring effectively (i.e., facial mood changes, finger flexion, long time walking, and continuous ankle movement) and shows a fast response time of 297 ms and a reliable cycling performance in monitoring body motions. Furthermore, the gum sensor (containing edible salt) can act as a signal transmitter for intelligent information encryption and transmission in the light of the international Morse code with excellent repeatability and stability. Hence, this work will greatly possess wide potential application prospects in wearable electronics and information encryption. This gum sensor also provides a ponderable option in the next generation of artificial intelligence devices, which can address the troubles of material selections in sensor preparation.

Automated summary

This study found that chewing gum can be reused to prepare wearable ion devices, and constructed a new type of gum sensor for real-time monitoring of human health and intelligent information encryption transmission. The preparation process of this sensor is green, low-energy consumption, and reusable, providing broad application prospects for wearable electronics and information encryption.