Artificial Skin That “Feels” Temperature Changes
Reporter: Irina Robu, PhD
Engineers and scientists at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and ETH Zurich developed an artificial skin capable of detecting temperature changes using a mechanism similar to the biological mechanism that allow snakes to sense prey through heat. In those organs, ion channels in the cell membrane of sensory nerve fibers expand as temperature increases. This dilation allows calcium ions to flow, triggering electrical impulses.
The material used is a long chain molecule found in plant cells which gives the skin its temperature sensing capabilities. The team chose pectin because the pectin molecules in the film have a weakly bonded double-strand structure that contains calcium ions. As temperature increases, these bonds break down and the double strands “unzip,” releasing the positively charged calcium ions.
This would make pectin sensors useful for industrial applications, such as thermal sensors in consumer electronics or robotic skins to augment human-robot interactions. However, they need to change the fabrication process as that the current process leads to the presence of water which tends to bubble or evaporate at high temperatures.
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