Microengineered Conductive Elastomeric Electrodes for Long-Term Electrophysiological Measurements with Consistent Impedance under Stretch

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 15; no. 10; pp. 26906 - 26920
• Main Authors: Hu, Dinglong, Cheng, Tin, Xie, Kai, Lam, Raymond
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23.10.2015; MDPI
• Subjects: Arrays; Biocompatibility; biopotential; Deformation; Dimethylpolysiloxanes - chemistry; ECG; Elastomers; Electric Conductivity; Electric Impedance; Electrically conductive; Electrocardiography; Electrodes; Electrophysiology - methods; Human body; Humans; microstructure; nanoparticle; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanostructure; PDMS; Polymers - chemistry; Resistivity; Sensors; Silicon wafers; Skin; ECG; nanoparticle; microstructure; biopotential; PDMS
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s151026906

In this research, we develop a micro-engineered conductive elastomeric electrode for measurements of human bio-potentials with the absence of conductive pastes. Mixing the biocompatible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone with other biocompatible conductive nano-particles further provides the material with an electrical conductivity. We apply micro-replica mold casting for the micro-structures, which are arrays of micro-pillars embedded between two bulk conductive-PDMS layers. These micro-structures can reduce the micro-structural deformations along the direction of signal transmission; therefore the corresponding electrical impedance under the physical stretch by the movement of the human body can be maintained. Additionally, we conduct experiments to compare the electrical properties between the bulk conductive-PDMS material and the microengineered electrodes under stretch. We also demonstrate the working performance of these micro-engineered electrodes in the acquisition of the 12-lead electrocardiographs (ECG) of a healthy subject. Together, the presented gel-less microengineered electrodes can provide a more convenient and stable bio-potential measurement platform, making tele-medical care more achievable with reduced technical barriers for instrument installation performed by patients/users themselves.