Target specific hydrogel for disease diagnosis and environmental remediation

Abstract

In the field of healthcare as well as environmental monitoring, the in-situ sensing of chemical parameters such as pH, glucose, enzymes, and other analytes is of immense importance. A considerable number of studies and research work using hydrogel as a chemical/mechanical sensor have been done in this domain. Hydrogels are 3-dimensional networks of cross-linked water swollen polymers containing chemical groups that are sensitive to environmental stimuli. Hydrogels contain stimuli-sensitive chemical groups, resulting in swelling or shrinking in response to changes in external stimuli. This reversible volume change can be incorporated into magnetic, capacitive, inductive, or other sensing mechanisms. Despite many years of research, hydrogel based chemo-mechanical sensors have still been beyond practicality. The reasons may have been the difficulties associated with the incorporation of hydrated gel with hard inorganic materials, and the sluggish response of the sensor, among many others. The work presented here is an effort to exhibit a pH-responsive voltage change mechanism of an integrated sensor where the pH response of the pH-sensitive hydrogel is recorded in form of voltage via Arduino sensor, with changes in the distance between the sensor and magnetic strip placed on top of the hydrogel.