Conductive Elastic Composite Electrode and Its Application in Electrocardiogram Monitoring Clothing
Boya Chang, Jiabei Luo, Jun Xia, Chuanyue Sun, Kerui Li, Yaogang Li, Qinghong Zhang, Hongzhi Wang, Chengyi Hou
Abstract
Wearable monitoring devices help achieve a long-term signal monitoring of the human body, which is important for human health analyses. Silver–silver chloride electrodes used for bioelectric monitoring face challenges such as gel moisture loss, inability to monitor for long periods, and skin sensitization. Herein, we report a conductive elastic composite electrode based on a thermoplastic elastomer of styrene–ethylene–butylene–styrene and conductive filler of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) and carbon black, which has excellent tensile and stable electrical properties. The conductive elastic composite electrode has a stable open circuit potential with a change of approximately 0.01 mV and low impedance (<4 × 10 –4 Ω). Simultaneously, the electrode exhibits good wear resistance and water resistance, which can be used for a long-term electrocardiogram (ECG) signal monitoring. We further investigated the integration of fiber electrodes with traditional clothing to propose a set of applications for wearable wireless ECG acquisition systems.