3D printing of polymer based flexible sensors for biomedical application

• Autor(a) principal: Capitão, José Rui Courela
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/33472
• topic: Flexible sensors; Polylactic acid; Poly-l-lactic acid; Biodegradability; Biomedical applications; Cost-efficient; Corona pooling; Piezoelectricity and triboelectricity; Electrical characterization; Solvent casting; Electrospinning; Surface charge; 3D Printing; COMSOL

Flexible self-powered sensors have great potential in the medical field, offering a means of continuous monitoring of patients, helping to prevent and diagnose diseases. The present work explores biodegradable and low-cost alternatives to produce flexible sensors, from polylactic acid, for biomedical applications. Flexible sensors are composed of 3 main parts: transducers, electrodes, and substrate. In this work, the flexible sensors object of study are constituted by an incapsulating substrate of transparent adhesive tape, electrodes produced by 3D printing of a conductive composite of polylactic acid doped with carbon black and by 2 types of transducers; poly-L-lactic (PLLA) and commercial polylactic acid (PLA) To produce the poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) and polylactic acid (PLA) transducers, two production methods were used: solvent cast and electrospinning, corona pooling methodology was used to change its electrical state. The response of sensors to mechanical and electrical stimuli was investigated and compared. The results show that both PLA and PLLA work based on the principle of piezoelectricity and triboelectricity and respond to mechanical deformation, the best results were obtained by transducers produced by solvent casting treated by corona pooling.