Ionic-electronic Conductive Fabric Electrodes for Wearable Biopotential Monitoring

This work proposed a low-cost and convenient way to develop textile electrodes with mixed conductive polymer by drop-casting. The effect of a conductivity enhancing agent (i.e., ethylene glycol (EG)) for PEDOT:PSS-coated fabric electrodes was investigated specifically. The results showed that the conductivity of the fabric electrode reached the highest with the addition of 20% EG compared to 0% and 5% EG loadings, which was different from that of thin-film electrodes in previous studies. In addition, the stability of the conductivity to washing was improved with the addition of the crosslinker GOPS and the surfactant DBSA. The signal quality in electrocardiogram recording with the PEDOT:PSS-coated fabric electrodes were comparable to that of commercial wet electrodes and outperformed silver-coated textile electrodes. Clinical Relevance- The dry textile electrodes with high conductivity and biopotential signal quality are of vital importance for wearable health monitoring to enable the early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases.