The current physical health care system has gradually evolved into a form of virtual hospitals communicating with sensors, which can not only save time but can also diagnose a patient’s physical condition in real time. Textile-based wearable sensors have recently been identified as detection platforms with high potential. They are developed for the real-time noninvasive detection of human physiological information to comprehensively analyze the health status of the human body. Sweat comprises various chemical compositions, which can be used as biomarkers to reflect the relevant information of the human physiology, thus providing references for health conditions. Combined together, textile-based sweat sensors are more flexible and comfortable than other conventional sensors, making them easily integrated into the wearable field. In this short review, the research progress of textile-based flexible sweat sensors was reviewed. Three mechanisms commonly used for textile-based sweat sensors were firstly contrasted with an introduction to their materials and preparation processes. The components of textile-based sweat sensors, which mainly consist of a sweat transportation channel and collector, a signal-selection unit, sensing elements and sensor integration and communication technologies, were reviewed. The applications of textile-based sweat sensors with different mechanisms were also presented. Finally, the existing problems and challenges of sweat sensors were summarized, which may contribute to promote their further development.

With the increasing interest in monitoring health and rapid growth in technology of electronic devices, personal wearable electronics have attracted extensive attention in the recent years. By integrating wearable electronic devices into clothing, accessories, electronic skin products, real-time monitoring and diagnosis of human movement and physiological conditions can be realized. In particular, electrospun micro/nanofibers (MNFs) have the benefits of good breathability, low cost and light weight, owing to their high specific surface area and flexible characteristics making them convenient for wearable devices. In this review, we summarized the existing technologies for synthesizing electrospun MNFs, and classified the materials for preparing wearable physical sensors. Besides the performance and functions of MNFs-based physical sensors; the structure, arrangement and post-treatment of electrospun MNFs have also been described in detail. The operating mechanisms of MNFs-based physical sensors mainly including piezoresistive, piezoelectric, capacitive, triboelectric, thermal-resistive and pyroelectric sensors were briefly discussed, and the typical wearable physical sensory applications based on electrospun MNFs were demonstrated as well.

Polylactide/polyethylene glycol/curcumin (PLA/PEG/Cur) composite nanofibers (CNFs) with varying ratios of PEG were successfully fabricated by electrospinning. Characterizations of the samples, such as the porous structure, crystalline structure, pore size, wetting property and Cur release property were investigated by a combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV spectrophotometer. The antibacterial properties of the prepared porous CNFs against Escherichia coli bacteria were studied. The results showed that with the decrease of PEG in the CNFs, there appeared an evident porous structure on the CNF surface, and the porous structure could enhance the release properties of Cur from the CNFs. When the weight ratio (PEG:PLA) was 1:9, the pore structure of the nanofiber surface became most evident and the amount of Cur released was highest. However, the antibacterial effect of nonporous CNFs was better due to burst release over a short period of time. That meant that the porous structure of the CNFs could reduce the burst release and provide better control over the drug release.