Electrochemical Wearable Sensors Based on Laser-Induced Graphene for Health Monitoring

Electrochemical sensors play a major role in the detection of relevant biomedical analytes such as glucose, cholesterol, UA, dopamine, and lactate. Although notable advances have been developed in terms of sensitivity of detection, these devices usually operate with bulky electrode materials and non-continuous measurements. However, new healthcare directions encouraged the development of on-body devices for real-time monitoring, non-invasive measurements, high integration, and mobile operation. Electrochemical wearable sensors are intended to provide such features, but to do so, it is mandatory to replace conventional bulky electrodes with flexible and lightweight materials. The manufacturing of graphene-based electrodes by direct laser irradiation holds great potential for producing such wearable systems with high sensitivity and inherent flexibility. The laser-induced method departs from a polymeric precursor that exhibits a typical graphene electronic structure after controlled irradiation. The technique presents advantages such as the elimination of hazardous chemicals during synthesis, good reproducibility, scalability, high control of experimental parameters, lightweight resulting material, and flexibility. This chapter presents the fundamentals and current research conducted for wearable electrochemical systems based on laser-induced graphene electrodes in biomedical monitoring, along with some challenges in the field to create fully operational devices.