Novel Wearable Electrodes Based on Conductive Chitosan Fabrics and Their Application in Smart Garments

Abstract

Smart garments, which can capture electrocardiogram signals at any time or location, can alert others to the risk of heart attacks and prevent sudden cardiac death when people are sleeping, walking, or running. Novel wearable electrodes for smart garments based on conductive chitosan fabrics were fabricated by electroless plating of silver nanoparticles onto the surfaces of the fibers. The electrical resistance, which is related to the silver content of the composite fabrics, can be as low as 0.0332 ± 0.0041 Ω/sq due to the strong reactivity between amine groups and silver ions. After washing these fabrics eight times, the electrical resistance remained below 1 Ω/sq. The conductive chitosan fabrics were applied to smart garments as wearable electrodes to capture electrocardiogram signals of the human body in static state, jogging state, and running state, which showed good data acquisition ability and sensitivity.

Ambulatory Evaluation of ECG Signals Obtained Using Washable Textile-Based Electrodes Made with Chemically Modified PEDOT:PSS

“…Textile fabrics exhibit various features such as flexibility, stretchability, and washabilty; for this reason, conductive textiles exhibit growing potential in wearable electronics. Conductive textiles can be made by weaving, knitting, sewing, or embroidering of conductive yarns [19,20,21,22] or by printing technology based on the coating of the fabric by using conducting polymers or inks [23,24,25,26]. Conducting polymers combine some of the mechanical features of polymers with the electrical properties typical for metals [27,28,29].…”

Enhanced Antibacterial Activity of Silver Doped Titanium Dioxide-Chitosan Composites under Visible Light

“…When the pH is lower than its p K a (6.5), the protonated amino groups (NH 3 + ) at the C2 position in the glucose monomer of chitosan chains allow for the formation of a polycationic structure, which can interact with anionic compounds of bacteria [ 3 ]. The amino and hydroxyl groups on the macromolecular backbone make chitosan physically and chemically react with various compounds [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. For example, chitosan can react with terephthalaldehyde, forming a cross-linked chitosan hydrogel to make core-shell wall of the microcapsules applied in drug delivery system.…”

Wearable and Flexible Textile Electrodes for Biopotential Signal Monitoring: A review

“…A common strategy is based on combining metallic fibers with regular yarns or fibers by following established textile manufacturing processes like knitting [34], weaving [35] or embroidery [28,36]. Metallic fibers can be realized by creating fine metal wires [20] or through the deposition of metals on regular yarns via methods like physical vapor deposition (PVD) [37] and electrodeposition [22].…”

“…This trend is mostly because of the low cost of synthetic yarns. The preferred metals in electroless plating are usually silver, copper, and nickel [21,22,53].…”