Graphene-Enabled Electrodes for Electrocardiogram Monitoring

Abstract

The unique parameters of graphene (GN)—notably its considerable electron mobility, high surface area, and electrical conductivity—are bringing extensive attention into the wearable technologies. This work presents a novel graphene-based electrode for acquisition of electrocardiogram (ECG). The proposed electrode was fabricated by coating GN on top of a metallic layer of a Ag/AgCl electrode using a chemical vapour deposition (CVD) technique. To investigate the performance of the fabricated GN-based electrode, two types of electrodes were fabricated with different sizes to conduct the signal qualities and the skin-electrode contact impedance measurements. Performances of the GN-enabled electrodes were compared to the conventional Ag/AgCl electrodes in terms of ECG signal quality, skin–electrode contact impedance, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and response time. Experimental results showed the proposed GN-based electrodes produced better ECG signals, higher SNR (improved by 8%), and lower contact impedance (improved by 78%) values than conventional ECG electrodes.

Keywords

• graphene
• electrocardiogram (ECG)
• long-term monitoring
• dry electrodes
• contact impedance
• Raman spectroscopy