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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Ute JungwirthORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2023 The Authors. Small published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.Conductive polymeric microneedle (MN) arrays as biointerface materials show promise for the minimally invasive monitoring of analytes in biodevices and wearables. There is increasing interest in microneedles as electrodes for biosensing, but efforts have been limited to metallic substrates, which lack biological stability and are associated with high manufacturing costs and laborious fabrication methods, which create translational barriers. In this work, additive manufacturing, which provides the user with design flexibility and upscale manufacturing, is employed to fabricate acrylic-based microneedle devices. These microneedle devices are used as platforms to produce intrinsically-conductive, polymer-based surfaces based on polypyrrole (PPy) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). These entirely polymer-based solid microneedle arrays act as dry conductive electrodes while omitting the requirement of a metallic seed layer. Two distinct coating methods of 3D-printed solid microneedles, in situ polymerization and drop casting, enable conductive functionality. The microneedle arrays penetrate ex vivo porcine skin grafts without compromising conductivity or microneedle morphology and demonstrate coating durability over multiple penetration cycles. The non-cytotoxic nature of the conductive microneedles is evaluated using human fibroblast cells. The proposed fabrication strategy offers a compelling approach to manufacturing polymer-based conductive microneedle surfaces that can be further exploited as platforms for biosensing.
Author(s): Keirouz A, Mustafa YL, Turner JG, Lay E, Jungwirth U, Marken F, Leese HS
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Small
Year: 2023
Volume: 19
Issue: 14
Print publication date: 05/04/2023
Online publication date: 03/01/2023
Acceptance date: 13/12/2022
Date deposited: 12/02/2024
ISSN (print): 1613-6810
ISSN (electronic): 1613-6829
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202206301
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202206301
Data Access Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Dataset for Conductive polymer-coated 3D printed microneedles: biocompatible platforms for minimally invasive biosensing interfaces at https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-01210, reference number 1210.
PubMed id: 36596657
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