Additive manufacturing technologies are being explored by NASA for the in-space manufacturing of sensors and electronics. Additive manufacturing directly addresses the logistic challenge for long-duration human spaceflight missions while also offering a high degree of customization and tailorability. To ensure the health and safety of crew members during long duration missions, it can be advantageous to develop human health diagnostic tools that can be manufactured during those missions. Here we report the development of a wearable and fully printed electrochemical sensor for the detection of human performance markers in sweat.¹ The sensor’s fabrication is complimentary with in-space manufacturing for an on-demand and hands-free fabrication and is comprised of commercial and custom carbon, gold and silver inks on a polyimide substrate to make a flexible, 3-electrode electrochemical sensor, shown in Figure 1. Sensor readout is performed using standard electrochemical procedures via a miniaturized, custom potentiostat. The initial prototyped printed electrochemical sensors demonstrate good electrochemical performance and high mechanical stability while also displaying low batch to batch variability. Our goal is to create a highly adaptable and versatile approach that utilizes fabrication processes consistent with in-space manufacturing, thus enabling the manufacture of point-of-care devices during flight.

Reference

1. Brasier, N. & Eckstein, J. Sweat as a Source of Next-Generation Digital Biomarkers. Digit. Biomarkers 3, 155–165 (2019).