Laser-induced graphene-coated wearable smart textile electrodes for biopotentials signal monitoring

Abstract

This paper describes how to produce a wearable dry electrode at a reasonable cost and how to use it for the monitoring of biopotentials in electrocardiography. Smart textiles in wearable technologies have made a great advancement in the health care management and living standards of humans. Graphene was manufactured using the low-cost single-step process, laser ablation of polyimide, a commercial polymer. Graphene dispersions were made using solvent isopropyl alcohol which has low boiling point, nontoxicity, and environmental friendliness. After successive coating of the graphene dispersion on the cotton fabric to make it conductive, the sheet resistance of the resulting fabric dropped to 3% of its initial value. The laser-induced graphene (LIG) cotton dry electrodes thus manufactured are comparable to Ag/AgCl wet electrodes in terms of the skin-to-electrode impedance, measuring between 78.0 and 7.2 kΩ for the frequency between 40 Hz and 1 kHz. The LIG cotton electrode displayed a signal-to-noise ratio of 20.17 dB. Due to its comfort, simplicity, and good performance over a longer period of time, the textile electrode appears suited for medical applications.

Keywords

biopotential / electrocardiogram / electromyogram / flexible electrode / textile / porous graphene

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Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

C. M. Vidhya is sincerely thankful and acknowledges Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), India for providing junior research fellowship (JRF). The Nanoscale Research Facility (NRF) and Central Research Facility (CRF), IIT Delhi, India are thanked by the authors for providing the characterization facilities.

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