Intelligent Biocompatible Electronic Skin with Real-Time Exudate Sensing and Infection Early Warning for Advanced Wound Management

Abstract

Chronic wound management faces critical challenges in real-time exudate monitoring, as traditional passive dressings cannot provide quantitative information about exudate dynamics, leading to delayed infection detection and suboptimal healing outcomes. To address this, a self-powered biocompatible wound exudate sensing electronic skin (WES-Skin) is developed by constructing an innovative radial-circular interlaced electrode network integrated with triboelectric hydrogel layers. The WES-Skin utilizes a chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol (CS/PVA) hydrogel as the positive triboelectric layer and a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofiber membrane as the negative layer, enabling the conversion of exudate flow dynamics into electrical signals. The system achieves precise monitoring of exudate flow rate (0.05–2.0 mL/h), diffusion patterns, and early infection warning with high accuracy, while maintaining excellent biocompatibility and 14-day operational stability. This strategy has the potential to enable intelligent wound management with real-time feedback and to support future clinical decision-making, as suggested by in vitro and ex vivo evaluations, thereby indicating a promising path toward more precise chronic wound care.