Multifunctional wearable sensors based on biomimetic wheat-spike-like NiCo₂O₄@ZnWO₄ core-shell heterojunctions for glucose detection in trace amounts of sweat and monitoring of exercise environments

NiCo₂O₄@ZnWO₄ core-shell nanowire heterostructure with enhanced interfacial synergy. • Ultrahigh sensitivity and robust mechanical durability for pressure sensing. • Versatile human motion and physiological signal monitoring. • Dual-mode sunlight intensity detection and acoustic signal recognition. • High-performance non-enzymatic glucose sensing and wireless sweat analysis. With the growing demand among people with diabetes for multidimensional health management, sensors with multimodal sensing capabilities have become a hot topic of research. Inspired by wheat ears found in nature, this study employed a two-step hydrothermal method to synthesise NiCo₂O₄@ZnWO₄ core-shell heterojunction nanocomposites with a biomimetic wheat-ear-like microstructure, which were then utilised in multifunctional sensors. Owing to the synergistic effects of the hierarchical structure and the core-shell heterojunction, the sensor exhibits high sensitivity (1.48 × 10 8  kPa −1 ) and rapid response and recovery times (66/67 ms) within a pressure range of 18–100 kPa. It remains stable even after 10,000 cycles, enabling the real-time capture of movement signals from diabetic patients. Meanwhile, the strong charge transfer effect and abundant active sites at the NiCo₂O₄@ZnWO₄ interface enable the sensor to demonstrate high sensitivity (55.72 mA mM −1  cm −2 ), a wide linear range (1–1200 μM), and a low detection limit (0.22 μM, S/N = 3) in sweat glucose detection. Furthermore, the incorporation of ZnWO₄ endows the device with excellent responsiveness to UV irradiance within the range of 20–100 mW cm −2 . By deeply integrating biomimetic structural design with multimodal sensing capabilities, this study provides an effective strategy for diabetes health management. Download: Download high-res image (201KB) Download: Download full-size image