Washable, Sewable, All-Carbon Electrodes and Signal Wires for Electronic Clothing

Abstract

Smart wearable electronic accessories (e.g., watches) have found wide adoption; conversely, progress in electronic textiles has been slow due to the difficulty of embedding rigid electronic materials into flexible fabrics. Electronic clothing requires fibers that are conductive, robust, biocompatible, and can be produced on a large scale. Here, we create sewable electrodes and signal transmission wires from neat carbon nanotube threads (CNTT). These threads are soft like standard sewing thread, but they have metal-level conductivity and low interfacial impedance with skin. Electrocardiograms (EKGs) obtained by CNTT electrodes were comparable (P > 0.05) to signals obtained with commercial electrodes. CNTT can also be used as transmission wires to carry signals to other parts of a garment. Finally, the textiles can be machine-washed and stretched repeatedly without signal degradation. These results demonstrate promise for textile sensors and electronic fabric with the feel of standard clothing that can be incorporated with traditional clothing manufacturing techniques.

Electronic Textiles for Wearable Point-of-Care Systems

“…Recently, a type of washable, sewable, and all-carbon electrode was developed using CNT threads. 212 These electrodes demonstrated metal-level conductivity (6.6 ± 0.7 MS/m), which can be sewn onto a shirt for ECG signal measurement (Figure 3g). Even though these textile-based biopotential sensors represent a promising alternative to the traditional electrodes that are usually adopted in clinical practice, currently, there are still two limitations hampering the broad introduction of e-textiles with biopotential signal acquisition capability to the healthcare system.…”

Advances in Emerging Photonic Memristive and Memristive‐Like Devices

“…In fact, biocompatible materials can achieve the interface between the electronic devices and the biological environment, while it can meet the new requirements of the development and broaden the corresponding biotechnology and semiconductor applications, such as implant chips, [242,243] artificial neurons [244,245] and electronic skin. [246][247][248] Ferroelectric materials have promising potential in traditional non-volatile memory as a result of the characteristics of ferroelectric phase transition under an electric field. [9,249,250] However, traditional inorganic ferroelectric materials are insensitive to light, which limits their application in photonic memristive devices.…”

“…In fact, biocompatible materials can achieve the interface between the electronic devices and the biological environment, while it can meet the new requirements of the development and broaden the corresponding biotechnology and semiconductor applications, such as implant chips, [ 242 , 243 ] artificial neurons [ 244 , 245 ] and electronic skin. [ 246 , 247 , 248 ]…”

Transformation of Health and Social Care Systems—An Interdisciplinary Approach Toward a Foundational Architecture

“…In that context, digital therapeutics, consumer wearables and mobile apps, connected biomedical apps, smartphone cameras, connected virtual assistants in home care, but also health system disease management apps, care teams cooperation tools, interactive programs, personal health records, telemedicine and virtual visits to the doctor, and clinical trial tools have to be mentioned (21,22). Here, intelligent clothing using nanotube fibers to monitor heart metrics also comes into play (23).…”