A biocompatible pressure sensor based on a 3D-printed scaffold functionalized with PEDOT:PSS for biomedical applications

Personalized health-care monitoring, such as human motion and gait, can provide valuable information useful for prevention and diagnosis of a variety of diseases and also in patients rehabilitation. By employing suitable biocompatible materials that possess tunable compression properties related to 3D structure and able to convert the strain stimuli into a detectable signal, pressure sensors for human motion monitoring can be developed. In this study, our purpose is to obtain a conductive and biocompatible scaffold able to transform the mechanical deformations caused by an applied pressure to an electrical resistance variations. In particular, the effect of a conductive biocompatible functionalization with PEDOT:PSS polymer on thermoplastic silicone polycarbonate polyurethane (CarboSil) scaffold presenting five different structures have been studied by mechanical and electrical tests. The scaffold stiffness depends on structures features but it is not affected by the PEDOT:PSS coating. The electrical tests show a linear response on a wide range of pressure loads with all the tested polymeric scaffolds. Two scaffolds show the higher conductivity respect to other samples. Therefore, the scaffold structure network influences the electrical sensor response. The possibility to exploit the 3D printing tecnology with CarboSil paves the way to a new class of customizable, easy to manufacture and biocompatible integrated devices for medical applications.