Future Trends in Alternative Sustainable Materials for Low-Temperature Thermoelectric Applications.

In the evolution of pervasive electronics, it is imperative to significantly reduce the energy consumption of power systems and embrace sustainable materials and fabrication processes with minimal carbon footprint. Within this context, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) have garnered substantial attention in recent years because of the readily available thermal gradients in the environment, making them a promising energy-harvesting technology. Current commercial room-temperature thermoelectrics are based on scarce, expensive, and/or toxic V-VI chalcogenide materials, which limit their widespread use.

Selectivity of Relative Humidity Using a CP Based on S-Block Metal Ions.

Herein, we present the syntheses of a novel coordination polymer (CP) based on the perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylate (pery) linkers and sodium metal ions. We have chosen sodium metal center with the aim of surmising the effect that the modification of the metal ion may have on the relative humidity (RH) experimental measurements of the material. We confirm the role of the ions in the functionalization of the deposited layer by modifying their selectivity towards moisture content, paving the way to the generation of sensitive and selective chemical sensors.

Optimization of Cost-Effective and Reproducible Flexible Humidity Sensors Based on Metal-Organic Frameworks.

In this letter, we present the extension of a previous work on a cost-effective method for fabricating highly sensitive humidity sensors on flexible substrates with a reversible response, allowing precise monitoring of the humidity threshold. In that work we demonstrated the use of three-dimensional metal-organic framework (MOF) film deposition based on the perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylate linker, potassium as metallic center and the interspacing of silver interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) as humidity sensors. In this work, we study one of the most important issues in efficient and reproducible mass production, which is to optimize the most important processes' parameters in their fabrication, such as controlling the thickness of the sensor's layers.

Wearable System for Biosignal Acquisition and Monitoring Based on Reconfigurable Technologies.

Wearable monitoring devices are now a usual commodity in the market, especially for the monitoring of sports and physical activity. However, specialized wearable devices remain an open field for high-risk professionals, such as military personnel, fire and rescue, law enforcement, etc. In this work, a prototype wearable instrument, based on reconfigurable technologies and capable of monitoring electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation, and motion, is presented.