Industrial Consultancy & Sponsored Research (IC&SR) , IIT Madras

Smart Mask Fabrication: A Conducting Cloth Based Breath Humidity Sensor

Technology Category/Market

Chemicals Polymers, Sensors

Computer Sciences & IT – Deep Learning

Applications – Smart Textile, Consumer electronics and  Healthcare.

Market: The global humidity sensor market size is projected to grow $11.85 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 14.2% from 2020 to 2027.

Targeted Industries

Watermarking IP design,

Electronic circuits

Image Gallery

Problem Statement

  • Humidity monitoring is essential in many fields beyond personal usage, including food processing and medicine.
  • Millions of people in the world suffer from a variety of common respiratory problems like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and cystic fibrosis.
  • These problems can be regulated by monitoring the components such as carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapour, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contained in the individual’s exhaled breath.
  • Examining breath samples for disease prognosis is a promising non-invasive option. However, the widespread deployment of traditionally used methods like Mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy has been hampered by a number of factors, such as high cost, need for trained staff, and inflexibility.
  • Thus, the conducting cloth-based breath humidity sensors in the form of wearable face mask have proven to be a useful solution to a few of the problems.

Technology

The System comprises of 3 parts:

1. Fabricating the conducting cloth based breath humidity sensor:

  • The non-woven polypropylene (PP) cloth is soaked in water for 12h, after which the cloth is immersed in aniline solution for 2 min and later soaked in clean water. Thereafter, the cloth is soaked in ammonium persulfate and after which again immersed in clean water (SILAR method).
  • This cycle is repeated for 17 times for growth of Polyaniline (PANI) on the cloth, which turns the colour from blue to green. (Fig. 1)
  • The next step is Interdigitated silver electrodes were screen-printed on the conducting cloth and was stitched on a mask and transforming it into a smart mask. The sensor was then connected to the measurement circuit via conducting thread using silver paste.

2. Microcontroller: It measures the voltage drop across the sensor.

3. Android application

  • An application is developed to collect and visualize the data from the microcontroller. 
  • Using deep learning, the data collected is analyzed to classify and detect the patterns in breathing.

Key Features/Value Proposition

  • This humidity sensor using conducting polymers is capable of differentiating slow, normal and fast breathing patterns from nose as well as the mouth.
  • Quick response time – The sensors have very quick response time of about one second and can detect a range of relative humidity from 0 – 95%.
  • Textile such as PP, cotton, silk, nylon, polyester were used as substrate and poly aniline was in-situ polymerized on the substrate using SILAR.
  • Portable sensor – Uses Arduino prototyping platform coupled with Bluetooth module for collecting data wirelessly.
Questions about this Technology?

Contact for Licensing

Research Lab

Prof. Pradeep Thalappil,

Department of Chemistry

Intellectual Property

  • IN 202241008331
  • IITM IDF Ref. 2293

Technology Readiness Level

TRL 3

Technology is at a Proof of Concept (PoC) stage.

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