Noncontact textile electrodes for wireless ECG system

Conductive fabrics have become an area of research interest due to the emerging applications and rapid development in e-textile industry. Advances in conductive fabrics, metal coated textile, and flexible electronics have lead to the development of novel biomedical embedded wearable system with integrated sensors, circuits and antennas. The object of the research is to develop a non-contact Ag/AgCl electrode using silver coated polyurethane fabrics. Polyurethane is considered as one of the best textiles materials for such applications [1]. Pure silver is a highly electrical and thermal conductive material. Electroplated thin film silver retain these characteristics which makes it useful in many applications such as printed circuit boards and systems [2]. Unlike electroplating, where externally supplied electrons from external energy source act as the reducing agent, electroless plating depends upon catalytic reduction of the metal ion in an aqueous solution containing reduction agent. The deposition takes place without any external electrical energy. In our research, we are using chemical plating, an autocatalytic deposition method, to depositing active metals on nonconductive passive textile surface.