Multiwall Carbon Nanotube/Polydimethylsiloxane Composites-Based Dry Electrodes for Bio-Signal Detection

Abstract

Continuous, stable, and long-term monitoring of bio-signals, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and electromyography (EMG), are utmost important in healthcare sector. In this work, we developed a multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites based bio-electrodes using a simple, low-cost, and solution-process method. The fabricated MWCNTs/PDMS composites electrode exhibited comparable electrode–skin impedance to conventional silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) electrodes over the frequency range of 20 Hz–1 kHz. In addition, our developed electrodes has the ability to be applied on the skin in dry form without needing an intermediate gel layer or skin preparation. The results show that the MWCNT-/PDMS-based dry electrodes were efficient to acquire a real-time ECG signals. The fabricated electrodes showed better performance compared to the commercially available Ag/AgCl electrode in ECG and EMG measurements. The obtained results shows that the proposed dry bio-electrodes has a promising application in electronic/mobile health applications and wearable health monitoring applications.