Smart Nanotextiles for Wearable Health Monitoring

The rapid emergence of nanotechnology-enabled smart textiles provides new opportunities in health monitoring, therapeutic treatment, and disease management. Owing to the exceptional sensitivity, outstanding electric and mechanical properties, and scalable fabrication process, nanomaterials have become key building blocks for smart textiles. Wearable and personalized sensing greatly benefits tracking of health and wellness and treatment of illness through real-time and long-term monitoring of physiological indicators and physical activities. This chapter presents recent advances in nanotechnology-enabled smart textiles for health monitoring. The chapter starts with a brief overview followed by a summary of nanotextiles for sensing various physical biomarkers, including body temperature, biopotential signals, blood pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rate. Next, biochemical monitoring of key parameters in biofluids, breath, and body odor is highlighted. Finally, the development of sensors with multifunctionalities and the integration of multisensors for multimodal health monitoring are discussed.