Hydration detection through use of artificial sweat in doped- and partially-doped nanostructured CuO films

A new method of sweat sensing based on nanostructured Copper Oxide (CuO) films is presented. Films were developed by the Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction (SILAR) method. The morphological, structural and electrical properties of the CuO films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, and room temperature current voltage measurements, respectively. We doped CuO films with artificial sweat during the film growth process. We also drop cast the surface of the intrinsic CuO films with artificial sweat to investigate the effect of partial doping. Our results showed that partial doping indeed gave results consistent with those of actual doping. The resistivity of the partially doped films was decreased with increasing artificial sweat concentrations. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.