Colorimetric Hydrogel Dressing with Smartphone Detector for Point-of-Care Wound pH Monitoring

Authors

Cherifi, K., Christodoulopoulos, K., Kizilkaya, A., Touba Toure, M., Toupchinejad, F., Matoori, S.

Abstract

Chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers are typically more alkaline than healing wounds, making wound pH a valuable diagnostic and prognostic marker. However, point-of-care pH monitoring remains limited by the availability of point-of-care wound pH sensing systems that offer quantitative pH determination, low toxicity, and small portable detectors. Here, we report a colorimetric pH-sensing wound dressing that enables in situ pH detection using a conventional smartphone camera. The anionic pH-sensitive dye HPTS was loaded onto cationic microparticles and embedded within a calcium-crosslinked alginate hydrogel. Across the clinically relevant range of pH 6.0-9.0, increasing pH produced a progressively more intense yellow coloration, quantified through the blue channel of smartphone-acquired RGB images. The dressing displayed a strong, rapid, and reversible signal in vitro with low dye release. In a full-thickness excisional wound model in mice, wound pH changes were detected in vivo. The combination of a pH-sensitive colorimetric hydrogel with a conventional smartphone detector offers accessible wound pH monitoring at the point-of-care.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 11 Aug 2026.

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