Stretchable hydrogel electronics

Engineers at MIT have created what could be the next band-aid:a material that is sticky, stretchy, and looks like a gel. It can have temperature sensors, LED lights, and other electronics in it, as well as tiny reservoirs and channels for delivering drugs.

The “smart wound dressing” can light up to indicate, for instance, that medicine is running low and releases medicine in response to changes in skin temperature.The dressing stretches with the body when applied to a highly flexible area, like the elbow or knee, keeping the embedded electronics functional and intact.

A hydrogel matrix that was created by Robert N. Noyce Career Development Associate Professor Xuanhe Zhao in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is the key to the design.The hydrogel, which Zhao point by point recently, is a rubbery material, for the most part made out of water, intended to bond emphatically to surfaces like gold, titanium, aluminum, silicon, glass, and fired.