Studying the performance of conductive polymer films as textile electrodes for electrical bioimpedance measurements

• With the goal of finding novel biocompatible materials suitable to replace silver in the manufacturing of textile electrodes for medical applications of electrical bioimpedance spectroscopy, three different polymeric materials have been investigated. Films have been prepared from different polymeric materials and custom bracelets have been confectioned with them. Tetrapolar total right side electrical bioimpedance spectroscopy (EBIS) measurements have been performed with polymer and with standard gel electrodes. The performance of the polymer films was compared against the performance of the gel electrodes. The results indicated that only the polypropylene 1380 could produce EBIS measurements but remarkably tainted with high frequency artefacts. The influence of the electrode mismatch, stray capacitances and large electrode polarization impedance are unclear and they need to be clarified with further studies. If sensorized garments could be made with such biocompatible polymeric materials the burden of considering textrodes class III devices could be avoided.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Medicinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Medical Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Conductive polymer films

Electrical bio-impedance

Electrode polarizations

Stray capacitances

Tetrapolar

Textile electrodes

Biological materials

Electric impedance

Electric impedance tomography

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

Electrodes

Medical applications

Polymer films

Polypropylenes

Textiles

Functional polymers

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)