Intelligent ionotronic wood device can keep an eye on people’s health

The continuous capture of physiological signals through human contact with wood has been successfully demonstrated with a novel ‘intelligent’ wood device. The chemically modified wood can be turned into a floor or a chair that can sense pressure and heat changes simply when an individual stands or sits on it. Wood’s natural abundance and mechanical properties also make it a promising green material for chemical modification for dynamic motion analysis and cardiovascular monitoring.

In biological organisms’ information is stored as ions, whereas electronic devices rely on electrons. ‘We have ions, and the electrons that work together to produce tactile sensing signals,’ explains lead author Tingrui Pan. ‘We can actually get an interface between an artificial world like an iPhone and your natural world. This type of sensing is perfect to enable the traditional [wood] with new functionality.’