A novel piezoelectric sensor for continuous monitoring of sodium concentrations in sweat
By Ishan Gurnani
One weekend, I was out for a game of soccer with my friends. The temperature was a blazing 95?, and I began to feel light headed. I thought to myself: Why am I experiencing these symptoms? During halftime, I checked Google on my phone, and I learned that as I played, I excreted fundamental electrolytes, such as sodium, and water. However, I was only ingesting water, which resulted in a decrease in my body’s sodium levels, also known as hyponatremia. This created an osmotic imbalance across my blood brain barrier; therefore, a water flux caused my headache. After further research, I learned that my dizziness was just the tip of the iceberg sodium deficiencies result in a host of cardiac and neurological complications. I also saw a headline from a soccer player at Ajax, Abdelhak Nouri, who had the same deficiencies as me, but his were far more serious a cardiac arrhythmia led to permanent brain damage. This was when I realized that it was essential to develop a method for continuously monitoring sodium in athletes. I read countless journals to gain an understanding of current sensors, and I realized that their applications could not be realized due to drawbacks such as inaccuracy under low sweat rates and sweat volumes. From my knowledge of piezoelectric materials, I recalled that the energy outputs tended to have very small currents currents small enough to not be felt by a person. Therefore, I came up with the concept of applying the small currents generated by the conductivity of sodium to deform a piezoelectric beam and evaluate if this sensor could address the limitations of past sensors …