Novel Wearable Electrodes Based on Conductive Chitosan Fabrics and Their Application in Smart Garments

Smart garments, which can capture electrocardiogram signals at any time or location, can alert others to the risk of heart attacks and prevent sudden cardiac death when people are sleeping, walking, or running. Novel wearable electrodes for smart garments based on conductive chitosan fabrics were fabricated by electroless plating of silver nanoparticles onto the surfaces of the fibers. The electrical resistance, which is related to the silver content of the composite fabrics, can be as low as 0.0332 +/- 0.0041 Omega/sq due to the strong reactivity between amine groups and silver ions. After washing these fabrics eight times, the electrical resistance remained below 1 Omega/sq. The conductive chitosan fabrics were applied to smart garments as wearable electrodes to capture electrocardiogram signals of the human body in static state, jogging state, and running state, which showed good data acquisition ability and sensitivity.