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A thermogalvanic cell dressing for smart wound monitoring and accelerated healing

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 10, pages 80–93 (2026)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 12 February 2026

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Abstract

Current smart dressings with wound monitoring and electrical stimulation capabilities rely on flexible electronics comprising various sensors and external power sources. Despite increasing efforts to integrate all these components onto flexible, breathable and biocompatible substrates, realizing a zero-power electrical stimulation without compromising the clinical applicability remains challenging. Here we report a solution that harnesses the temperature gradient between the wound and dressing to generate an electric stimulus that provides active wound healing management. This was achieved by a thermogalvanic cell (TGC) dressing composed of Fe2+/Fe3+ cross-linked alginate hydrogel reinforced by nanofibres. The TGC dressing exhibits biocompatibility, antibacterial performance, easy re-shaping and moisture permeability. Moreover, the TGC dressing generates an exogenous electric field, promoting the spontaneous acceleration of wound healing. We additionally integrate a sensing system that can monitor respiration rate. In the large porcine wound model, the wound healing rate of a TGC-bandaged group is improved by about 20.6% on day 14 compared with an untreated group. Our wireless wound monitoring system may facilitate real-time monitoring of common wound models at different wound development stages.

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Fig. 1: Schematics of the self-powered and wireless TGC dressing for accelerated wound healing and monitoring.
Fig. 2: Fabrication and structural properties of TGC dressing.
Fig. 3: Mechanical property, exudate management and ion leakage of TGC dressing.
Fig. 4: Thermogalvanic effects of TGC dressing and enhancement of wound EF.
Fig. 5: In vitro and in vivo biocompatibility and healing properties of TGC dressing.
Fig. 6: TGC dressing-based portable system for wound monitoring and analysis.

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Data availability

The main data supporting the results of this study are available in the paper and its Supplementary Information. The RNA-seq data are available from the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (accession number PRJNA1244933). The raw and processed datasets generated during the study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The custom codes used in smart wound analysis training are available via DR-NTU at https://doi.org/10.21979/N9/ELSU4C (ref. 75).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE2019-T2-2-127 and MOE-T2EP50120-0002), the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (RG62/22), A*STAR under AME IRG (A2083c0062), and A*STAR under IAF-ICP Programme I2001E0067 and the Schaeffler Hub for Advanced Research at NTU. This work was supported by the IDMxS (Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science) by the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence scheme. This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2023M742317 and GZB20240446), Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau Postdoctoral Incentive Program (2023478). We also thank Y. Wang from UCLA for his help and discussions. This work was also supported by the NTU-PSL Joint Lab collaboration.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Jiwu Xin, Liheng Gao.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Jiwu Xin, Liheng Gao, Xuhui Zhou, Haozhe Zhang, Zhe Wang, Zhixun Wang, Bing He, Yanting Liu, Tianzhu Zhou, Ting Xiong, Shuai Wang, Shixing Yuan, Wulong Li & Lei Wei

  2. Department of Prosthodontics, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Liheng Gao, Wenjie Zhang, Xinyu Song & Yuanmeng Yang

  3. Key Laboratory of Textile Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai, China

    Liheng Gao & Lu Wang

  4. NTU Institute for Health Technologies, Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Wenrui Li

  5. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Wenrui Li & Say Chye Joachim Loo

  6. The Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science (IDMxS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Shixing Yuan & Lei Wei

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Contributions

J.X., L.G. and L. Wei designed the study. J.X. and L.G. conceived the idea. J.X., L.G. and L. Wang developed the materials and methodology for the TGC dressing. J.X. and S.Y. designed and performed the numerical modelling and analysis. J.X., L.G., Wenrui Li, Zhixun Wang, Zhe Wang, B.H., S.W., T.X., T.Z., Y.L. and Wulong Li performed the material characterizations. L.G., Y.Y., X.S. and W.Z. performed the in vivo experimental analysis. J.X., X.Z. and H.Z. performed the integrated circuit design and test. S.C.J.L. participated in the discussions. J.X., L.G. and L. Wei wrote the paper with contributions from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lei Wei.

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Competing interests

J.X., L.G. and L.W. have submitted a provisional patent application through Nanyang Technological University and have been assigned PCT patent application number PCT/SG2024/050745. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Notes 1–3, Figs. 1–36, Tables 1 and 2, and data and video captions.

Reporting Summary (download PDF )

Supplementary Data 1 (download XLSX )

Complete list of differentially expressed genes from RNA-seq data.

Supplementary Video 1 (download MP4 )

Simulation of the temperature distribution, potential and electric field distribution for the TGC/skin wound model.

Supplementary Video 2 (download MP4 )

Real-time wound monitoring interface for responding to the acute wound model.

Supplementary Video 3 (download MP4 )

Real-time wound monitoring interface for responding to the chronic wound model.

Supplementary Video 4 (download MP4 )

Real-time wound monitoring interface for responding to the recurrent infection model.

Supplementary Video 5 (download MP4 )

Real-time wound monitoring interface for reflecting the exudate.

Supplementary Video 6 (download MP4 )

TGC dressing for electrically stimulated healing of large acute wounds and respiratory monitoring of pigs.

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Xin, J., Gao, L., Zhang, W. et al. A thermogalvanic cell dressing for smart wound monitoring and accelerated healing. Nat. Biomed. Eng 10, 80–93 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01440-6

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