(Keynote) Near-Zero-Power Electrochemical Sensors for Wearable Wireless Health, Safety, Surveillance and Environmental Electronics

An emerging GDP revolution based on fusion of computing, communication, and sensing will bring a state of “abundance” and create the largest bull market in history [1]. Technical global tides including the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile/Wearable electronics, Digital Health, and context computing are driving the need for billions of sensors.  Healthcare will require 50 or more sensors on the body and will shift emphasis in healthcare from diagnosis of disease to the business of wellness.  Amazon has introduced a wearable electronics section validating this new market segment and acknowledging the rapid growth. The IoT with cloud and fog computing is planning to use trillions of sensors for “crowd” monitoring of our health, safety, security, and environment.  The disruptive characteristic of the needed gas sensors always includes low power but the technology must also be low cost and scalable to high volumes in order to be successful in high volume applications.  These restrictions also usually come with the need for high performance and small unobtrusive packaging.

Herein we report the smallest amperometric sensor we have made to date [5x5x1mm, below] and their performance. The amperometric sensor technology actually generates a small current [few nA] and, in some cases, can be galvanic and require no external power to operate. The sensors typically utilize a low power potentiostat [1.2 nA at 3 V] as well as sense the gases around and inside of us performing breath and environmental analysis. The gas sensors are combined with low-power or energy harvesting circuits for computing, reporting, and communication to provide situational awareness on mobile platforms and in our infrastructure.  The new sensors are made using PE [printed electronics] technology that can be scaled to billions of units and are sensitive to breath gases [e.g., acetone, alcohol, CO] and environmental gases [CO, NO₂, SO₂, ozone] at ppb and ppm levels with rapid response, multi-year lifetime and often important selectivity. Consumer products are in the stores starting in the fall of 2014 using the newest SPEC sensors [2] and the technology is reported here.  

1] T-Sensors Summit, November 11-13, 2014, San Diego, CA,  www.Tsensors.org.

2] www.spec-sensors.com.