Herein, we evaluated the use of paper towel, waxed paper, and Parafilm M^® (Heathrow Scientific, Vernon Hills, IL, USA) as alternative substrates for screen-printed sensor manufacturing. Morphological study was performed to evaluate the adhesion of the ink on these uncommon substrates, as well as the morphology of the working electrode. The electrochemical characterization was carried out using ferricyanide/ferrocyanide as redox couple. To enhance the electrochemical properties of the developed sensors, the nanomaterial carbon black was used as nanomodifier. The modification by drop casting of the working electrode surface, using a stable dispersion of carbon black, allows to obtain a sensor with improved electrochemical behavior in terms of peak-to-peak separation, current intensity, and the resistance of charge transfer. The results achieved confirm the possibility of printing the electrode on several cost-effective paper-based materials and the improvement of the electrochemical behavior by using carbon black as sustainable nanomaterial.

The increasing demand for decentralized, accessible, and rapid analytical tools is driving a transformation in healthcare toward point-of-care (POC) analytical technologies. The final aim is to reduce the cost of healthcare management originating from frequent patient hospitalizations and expensive and time-consuming laboratory-based analyses. This review explores the integration of microfluidic technologies with electrochemical sensing platforms, aiming to address the urgent need for POC analytical platforms. Owing to the miniaturization of fluid management systems and exploiting fluid automation, microfluidic devices enable low sample consumption, cost-effective analysis, and multiplexed detection, offering promising tools for real-time health monitoring. Among the other materials, the most commonly used substrates for microfluidics fabrication are paper, PDMS, and adhesive tape, which support custom-designed microchannel architectures, passive fluid motion, and wearable integration. Special attention is given to wearable sensors for sweat analysis, with various approaches employing capillary-driven flows and smart microfluidic designs to enable continuous and autonomous monitoring of biomarkers. Highlighting relevant works from the last 5 years, the review explores the role of integrated microfluidic electrochemical sensing devices in delivering advanced decentralized analytical platforms, with significant potential for clinical use in biomarker detection. Graphical abstract

Points-of-care (PoCs) augment healthcare systems by performing care whenever needed and are becoming increasingly crucial for the well-being of the worldwide population. Personalized medicine, chronic illness management, and cost reduction can be achieved thanks to the widespread adoption of PoCs. Significant incentives for PoCs deployment are nowadays given by wearable devices and, in particular, by RFID (RadioFrequency IDentification) and NFC (Near Field Communications), which are rising among the technological cornerstones of the healthcare internet of things (H-IoT). To fully exploit recent technological advancements, this paper proposes a system architecture for RFID-and NFC-based PoCs. The architecture comprises in a unitary framework both interfaces to benefit from their complementary features, and gathered data are shared with medical experts through secure and user-friendly interfaces that implement the Fast Health Interoperability Resource (FHIR) emerging healthcare standard. The selection of the optimal UHF and NFC components is discussed concerning the employable sensing techniques. The secure transmission of sensitive medical data is addressed by developing a user-friendly "PoC App" that is the first web app exploiting attribute-based encryption (ABE). An application example of the system for monitoring the pH and cortisol levels in sweat is implemented and preliminarily tested by a healthy volunteer.