Two-Layered and Stretchable e-Textile Patches for Wearable Healthcare Electronics

Abstract

Wearable healthcare systems require skin-adhering electrodes that allow maximal comfort for patients as well as an electronics system to enable signal processing and transmittance. Textile-based electronics, known as "e-textiles," is a platform technology that allows comfort for patients. Here, two-layered e-textile patches are designed by controlled permeation of Ag-particle/fluoropolymer composite ink into a porous textile. The permeated ink forms a cladding onto the nanofibers in the textile substrate, which is beneficial for mechanical and electrical properties of the e-textile. The printed e-textile features conductivity of ≈3200 S cm^-1 , whereas 1000 cycles of 30% uniaxial stretching causes the resistance to increase only by a factor of ≈5, which is acceptable in many applications. Controlling over the penetration depth enables a two-layer design of the e-textile, where the sensing electrodes and the conducting traces are printed in the opposite sides of the substrate. The formation of vertical interconnected access is remarkably simple as an injection from a syringe. With the custom-developed electronic circuits, a surface electromyography system with wireless data transmission is demonstrated. Furthermore, the dry e-textile patch collects electroencephalography with comparable signal quality to commercial gel electrodes. It is anticipated that the two-layered e-textiles will be effective in healthcare and sports applications.

Keywords: e-textiles; electroencephalography; stretchable electronics; surface electromyography; wetting.