Gels. 2026 Jul 17;12(7):639. doi: 10.3390/gels12070639.
ABSTRACT
As wearable sensors advance toward long-term motion monitoring and operation in humid environments, performance priorities are shifting from sensitivity to sustained reliability. Hydrogels are attractive sensing materials due to their tissue-like compliance, biocompatibility, and tunable conductivity; however, their hydrated networks readily absorb water under perspiration, high humidity, and underwater conditions, leading to structural relaxation, interfacial instability, conductive pathway disruption, and signal drift. Thus, anti-swelling design should move beyond reducing swelling ratios toward coordinated regulation of water transport, internal water environment, interfacial integrity, and signal stability. This review summarizes recent advances in anti-swelling hydrogel-based wearable sensors, focusing on structural engineering strategies, including network confinement, surface hydrophobicity, core-shell architectures, and gradient structures, as well as material regulation mechanisms, including ionic/coordination crosslinking, nanoconfinement, zwitterionic hydration, and solvation-mediated anti-water exchange, highlighting their synergistic roles in long-term anti-swelling performance and environmental adaptability. Representative applications in perspiration monitoring, underwater motion sensing, rehabilitation, and intelligent interaction demonstrate the importance of anti-swelling regulation for reliable sensing in wet environments. Finally, the remaining challenges are summarized, together with future perspectives on the synergistic design of structures, materials, and interfaces, standardized evaluation systems for realistic motion environments, and scalable manufacturing. Anti-swelling hydrogel sensors are expected to evolve from low-swelling materials into environmentally adaptive sensing platforms for aqueous environments, enabling advances in underwater sports monitoring, digital health, and underwater human-machine interaction.
PMID:42505321 | PMC:PMC13409393 | DOI:10.3390/gels12070639