Fully organic compliant dry electrodes self-adhesive to skin for long-term motion-robust epidermal biopotential monitoring

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 4683
• Main Authors: Zhang, Lei, Kumar, Kirthika Senthil, He, Hao, Cai, Catherine Jiayi, He, Xu, Gao, Huxin, Yue, Shizhong, Li, Changsheng, Seet, Raymond Chee-Seong, Ren, Hongliang, Ouyang, Jianyong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17-09-2020; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/1647/2204/1453/1448; 631/1647/2204/1453/1450; 631/1647/2204/1453/1451; 639/301/1005/1007; 9/25; 9/26; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18503-8

Wearable dry electrodes are needed for long-term biopotential recordings but are limited by their imperfect compliance with the skin, especially during body movements and sweat secretions, resulting in high interfacial impedance and motion artifacts. Herein, we report an intrinsically conductive polymer dry electrode with excellent self-adhesiveness, stretchability, and conductivity. It shows much lower skin-contact impedance and noise in static and dynamic measurement than the current dry electrodes and standard gel electrodes, enabling to acquire high-quality electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in various conditions such as dry and wet skin and during body movement. Hence, this dry electrode can be used for long-term healthcare monitoring in complex daily conditions. We further investigated the capabilities of this electrode in a clinical setting and realized its ability to detect the arrhythmia features of atrial fibrillation accurately, and quantify muscle activity during deep tendon reflex testing and contraction against resistance.
Reported wearable dry electrodes have limited long-term use due to their imperfect skin compliance and high motion artifacts. Here, the authors report an intrinsically conductive, stretchable polymer dry electrode with excellent self-adhesiveness for long-term high-quality biopotential detection.