Using conductive polymer coated textiles as electrodes for wearable biomonitoring

The ultimate goal for wearable technology is a seamless integration of sensors and electronics in everyday clothes and garments. Here we propose a step toward this goal by developing textiles electrodes made of conventional textile fabrics treated with the conductive polymer poly-3,4- ethylenedioxythiophene doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). Doping the polymer solution with glycerol we obtain natural (cotton) fabrics with a mean surface resistance of 97 Ω/sq and synthetic (polyamide) non-woven fabrics with a mean surface resistance of 45 Ω/sq. The intrinsic ionic conductivity of the PEDOT:PSS coated fabrics eliminates the need of electrolytes, pastes or solutions for acquiring bioelectrical potentials directly from the dry human skin. The performance of fabric electrodes in term of skin-electrode impedance and noise level is comparable to commercial gelled- Ag/AgCl electrodes even in dry condition and similar electrode areas.