Artificial skin could help them "feel"

Researchers are looking to create a sensor capable of mimicking the skin's sensing properties.

Artificial skin can help burn victims feel

A research paper now suggests that a new type of sensor could lead to an artificial skin that one day helps to burn the victims' touch and protects them from others.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut suggest the same thing in an article on advanced materials.

According to the study, the skin's ability to perceive pressure, heat, cold and vibration is an essential safety feature that most people take for granted. But burn victims, those who have prostheses, and those who have lost their skin sensitivity for one reason or another, can not take it for granted and often hurt themselves involuntarily.

The chemists Islam Mosa of UConn and James Rusling of UConn and UConn Health, as well as the engineer Abdelsalam Ahmed of the University of Toronto, wanted to create a sensor capable of reproducing the detection properties of the skin.

Such a sensor should be able to detect pressure, temperature and vibrations. But maybe he could do something else too, the researchers thought.

Speaking of which, Mosa said, "It would be very cool if it had capabilities that human skin does not have, for example, the ability to detect magnetic fields, sound waves, and abnormal behaviors."

Mosa and his colleagues created such a sensor with a silicone tube wrapped in a copper wire and filled with a special fluid consisting of minute particles of iron oxide a billionth of a meter long , called nanoparticles.

The nanoparticles rub around the inside of the silicone tube and create an electric current. The copper wire surrounding the silicone tube captures the current as a signal. When this tube is hit by something that is under pressure, the nanoparticles move and the electrical signal changes.

The sound waves also create waves in the nanoparticle fluid, and the electrical signal changes in a different way from that of the tube.

Researchers have discovered that magnetic fields also alter the signal, distinctly from pressure waves or sound. Even a person who moves while she is carrying the sensor changes the electrical current and the team discovered that she could distinguish the electrical signals caused by walking, running, jumping and swimming .

Mosa and his colleagues hope this could help burn victims "feel" again, and may serve as an early warning for workers exposed to dangerously high magnetic fields.

The rubber exterior being completely sealed and waterproof, it could also serve as a portable monitor to alert parents if their child has fallen into the deep water of a pool, for example.

Mosa said: "The inspiration was to create something sustainable that would last a very long time and could detect several dangers."

The team has not yet tested the sensor's sensitivity to heat and cold, but thinks it will work for these sensors as well. The next step is to configure the sensor in a flat configuration, more like a skin, and to check if it is still working.