Stumbling Through the Research Wilderness, Standard Methods to Shine Light on Electrically Conductive Nanocomposites for Future Health-Care Monitoring

TL;DR

This paper introduces a standardized reporting method for strain sensing performance of electrically conductive nanocomposites, including new metrics W and Y, to benchmark and guide future healthcare monitoring materials.

Contribution

It proposes a novel standardization approach and new material criteria, enabling consistent benchmarking of nanocomposites for health monitoring applications.

Findings

Defined benchmark criteria G > 7, W > 1, Y < 300 kPa.

Normalised data from 200 publications reveals trends and performance limits.

Identified key factors influencing composite sensor performance.

Abstract

Electrically conductive nanocomposites are an exciting ever expanding area of research that has yielded many new technologies for wearable health devices. Acting as strain sensing materials, they have paved the way towards real time medical diagnostic tools that may very well lead to a golden age of healthcare. Currently, the goal in research is to create a material that simultaneously has both a large gauge factor G and sensing range. However, a weakness in the area of electromechanical research is the lack of standardisation in the reporting of the figure of merit, i.e. G, and the need for new metrics to give researchers a more complete view of the research landscape of resistive type sensors. A paradigm shift in the way in which data is reported is required, to push research in the right direction and to facilitate achieving research goals. Here, we report a standardised method for reporting strain sensing performance and the introduction of the working factor W and the Young's modulus Y of a material as two new material criteria. Using this new method, we can now for the first time define the benchmarks for an optimum sensing material, G > 7, W > 1, Y < 300 kPa, using limits set by standard commercial materials and the human body. Using extrapolated data from 200 publications normalised to this standard method, we can review what composite types meet these benchmark limits, what governs composite performances, the literary trends in composites and individual nanomaterial performance and the future prospects of research.