Inkjet Printed Flexible Electronic Dry ECG Electrodes on Polyimide Substrates Using Silver Ink

摘要

Flexible electronic wearable device market demand is growing rapidly. In this research work, we have fabricated Inkjet Printed (IJP) flexible electronic dry ECG electrodes on polyimide substrates (50 µm thin) using silver nanoparticle ink in two shapes: circular and pentagonal. The IJP electrodes were cured at 250°C for 1 hour. We compared these IJP electrode performances against commercial gel and metal electrodes. We collected real-time ECG data using these 4 types of ECG electrodes simultaneously for 9 hours. Our IJP ECG electrodes showed very similar performances as the commercial gel and metal electrodes in terms of Signal-to-Noise Ratio, SNR (e.g. gel, metal, IJP circular, IJP pentagonal = 18.97, 18.93, 18.94, 18.96 dB, respectively) and coherence metrics. However, as the gel electrode degrades over time, after 9 hours the data was observed to be degrading while data from dry electrodes were similar as evident from the time-frequency graphs. Metal electrode suffered from higher utility line noises. Furthermore, IJP circular and pentagonal shaped flexible electrodes were superior for comfort due to being flexible compared to rigid metal electrode. Thus, the proposed IJP dry electrodes can be a viable option for long-time use, reusability, and comfort for usage in ECG wearables.