Self-Powered Breath Monitoring Using Electrospun Biodegradable and Biocompatible Textile Sensors

This paper presents the development of self-powered breath monitoring sensors using triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) technique fabricated from electro spun polycaprolactone (PCL) and cellulose acetate (CA) fibers. The CA was chemically modified with 0.2M NaOH, achieving a maximum open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 14.3 V, short-circuit current (Isc) of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1.67 \mu \mathrm{A}$</tex> and charge (Qsc) of 6.61 nC. Incorporating 3 % chitosan into PCL further enhanced the sensor's performance, yielding a Voc of 20.8 V, Isc of 3.178 µA, and Qsc of 9.9 nC. The sensor demonstrated excellent sensitivity, with a linear response and a sensitivity of 2.209 V/kPa across a pressure range of 0.625-12.5 kPa. It also exhibited rapid response times of 34–36 ms and recovery times of 24–26 ms. The optimized materials and sensor configuration show promise for continuous real-time breath monitoring. This innovation provides a significant advancement in wearable health monitoring systems, enabling early detection of respiratory illnesses and chronic disease management.