Two‐Layered and Stretchable e‐Textile Patches for Wearable Healthcare Electronics

• Published in: Advanced healthcare materials Vol. 7; no. 22; pp. e1801033 - n/a
• Main Authors: La, Thanh‐Giang, Qiu, Shide, Scott, Dylan K., Bakhtiari, Reyhaneh, Kuziek, Jonathan W. P., Mathewson, Kyle E., Rieger, Jana, Chung, Hyun‐Joong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-11-2018
• Subjects: Circuits; Cladding; Data processing; Data transmission; EEG; Electrical properties; Electrical resistivity; Electrodes; Electroencephalography; Electromyography; Electronic circuits; Electronics; e‐textiles; Fluoropolymers; Health care; Nanofibers; Patients; Penetration depth; Signal processing; Signal quality; Skin; stretchable electronics; Substrates; surface electromyography; Textiles; Wearable technology; wetting; electroencephalography; wetting; surface electromyography; e-textiles; stretchable electronics
• ISSN: 2192-2640; 2192-2659
• DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201801033

Wearable healthcare systems require skin‐adhering electrodes that allow maximal comfort for patients as well as an electronics system to enable signal processing and transmittance. Textile‐based electronics, known as “e‐textiles,” is a platform technology that allows comfort for patients. Here, two‐layered e‐textile patches are designed by controlled permeation of Ag‐particle/fluoropolymer composite ink into a porous textile. The permeated ink forms a cladding onto the nanofibers in the textile substrate, which is beneficial for mechanical and electrical properties of the e‐textile. The printed e‐textile features conductivity of ≈3200 S cm−1, whereas 1000 cycles of 30% uniaxial stretching causes the resistance to increase only by a factor of ≈5, which is acceptable in many applications. Controlling over the penetration depth enables a two‐layer design of the e‐textile, where the sensing electrodes and the conducting traces are printed in the opposite sides of the substrate. The formation of vertical interconnected access is remarkably simple as an injection from a syringe. With the custom‐developed electronic circuits, a surface electromyography system with wireless data transmission is demonstrated. Furthermore, the dry e‐textile patch collects electroencephalography with comparable signal quality to commercial gel electrodes. It is anticipated that the two‐layered e‐textiles will be effective in healthcare and sports applications.
Two‐layered e‐textile patches are designed by controlled permeation of Ag‐particle/fluoropolymer composite ink into a porous electrospun textile substrate. While the printed e‐textiles feature remarkable conductivity and operational reliability, controlling over the penetration depth enables a two‐layer design of the e‐textile, which is beneficial for high‐fidelity surface electromyography and electroencephalograph measurements with the custom‐designed electronic system with wireless signal transmission.