Bioelectrodes for "smart" clothes
Dry electrodes for smart clothes are being prepared for preclinical tests
TPU News Service
Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University with the support of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science's "Priority 2030" program have developed bioelectrodes to create "smart" clothes. They allow you to register the electrical activity of the heart, muscles, brain and other signals of the human body. These sensors are simple, potentially inexpensive to produce in large quantities. And unlike analogues, they work without using a special conductive gel, which in some cases causes allergies. The study has reached the final stage of laboratory tests, after which preclinical tests will be conducted.
Smart clothing is a new direction in modern materials science. Such clothing allows you to read human vital signs using electronic sensors that monitor the owner's indicators such as pulse, pressure, respiration, temperature. They should easily integrate into the tissue, be functional, resistant to external influences and biocompatible, i.e. not cause negative reactions of the body.
The electrodes of TPU scientists are based on stable composites based on graphene oxide. They were developed by the scientific group of Tomsk Polytechnic University TERS-Team under the leadership of Professors Evgenia Sheremet and Raul Rodriguez. Many solutions were applied here for the first time. In particular, the technology of obtaining the material itself. The polytechnics used the method of laser processing of graphene oxide deposited on a polymer substrate.
"With the help of a laser, a conductive contour is burned out on the surface. This allows you to control the shape of the sensors, give them the necessary configuration and structure properties. According to their characteristics, such electrodes correspond to the best characteristics of commercially available silver chloride electrodes. This is very important for their successful application. At the same time, they are potentially cheaper in mass production, they can be applied to any substrate",
— comments Professor of the Research School of Chemical and Biomedical Technologies of TPU Evgenia Sheremet.
A unique feature of the development of polytechnics is that these are so-called "dry" electrodes. They can work without a gel interface that provides contact with the skin. The ability to exclude the use of gel is an important advantage: the gel causes allergies in about 20% of people, dries out. When the gel dries, for example, signal loss occurs during long-term monitoring. If these signals are used to control a robotic prosthesis, the user simply will not be able to use it. It is because of the gel that commercially available electrodes require changing every 24 hours.
It is also important that graphene-based electrodes are stable, have mechanical and electrical characteristics necessary for embedding in clothing.
"Sensors for smart clothing should not only fit comfortably and securely to the body, but also be biologically intact. The set of properties of these electrodes is unique. Studies on cell lines have shown a high biocompatibility of our electrodes. And tests with the participation of volunteers demonstrated the possibility of contacting sensors with the skin for at least 48 hours," says the professor of the Research School of Chemical and Biomedical Technologies of TPU Konstantin Brazovsky.
Now the project is at the final stage of laboratory tests, followed by preclinical tests. Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic Institute conduct them together with colleagues of the Siberian State Medical University. In case of a positive result, the project will reach the level of preclinical and subsequent clinical studies for the registration of sensors as medical devices.
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