Recent advances, technological challenges and requirements to predict the future treads in wearable sweat sensors: A critical review

Purpose: The demand for non-invasive real-time health monitoring devices has increased in the last few decades. Healthcare communities claim an increase in the average lifetime of human beings by 10 to 15 years through regular monitoring of the physical status of one's health. Hence, researchers are rigorously focusing on developing optimized wearable biosensors for real-time health status monitoring. However, a few brands like Apple Watch and FitBit have come up with a new class of health monitoring wearables but have yet to succeed in providing more profound insights. As biological fluids consist of molecules secreted from the various body parts, the variation in the concentration of such constituents reveals the health status at the molecular level. Among all the biofluids, sweat can be extracted continuously and also non-invasively. In some health issues, such as diabetes and cystic fibrosis, continuous and real-time diagnosis is required. In such cases, sweat analysis is proven as a gold standard. Design/methodology/approach: In this article, we have discussed different biomarkers, their concentration in sweat, and their relative health parameters. This article sheds light on various sweat sampling techniques, different wearable sweat sensing methodologies, and the significance of wearable sweat sensors in the healthcare sector and in the sports community. Findings: Adopting safe signaling and data handling techniques and high-throughput manufacturing methods may lead to a more comprehensive picture of health and its broader commercial utility. This article critically reviews the recent developments, technological challenges, and requirements for future advancements in wearable sweat sensors. Originality/value: This review paper comprises a detailed discussion of wearable sweat sensors with an aim to cover all the most important aspects of this system. This piece of study provides all the basic as well as advanced information to the new researchers interested in this field. The future scope discussed here suggests novel possibilities and developments in the healthcare sector.