ECG Electrodes for Smart ECG Monitoring for biomedical applications

Abstract

There has been an expeditious rise in various complicated and vulnerable diseases in the world today. The most critical set of diseases are Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs). CVDs are affecting a lot of population present across the globe. As these diseases are unpredictable in nature, medical facilities and diagnosis should be made more prompt and effective. As the world population is rapidly increasing, there is a massive burden on the healthcare industry. The healthcare systems should be portable, more connected and most importantly reliable. This can only be accomplished with the help of various technologies. First and foremost, are the sensors used to measure the Electrocardiogram (ECG) for various CVDs. Decades ago, Ag/AgCl gel based electrodes were used to measure the ECG. However, due to their various disadvantages, the medical fraternity moved on to using dry electrodes. Various dry electrodes were developed and used for this purpose. Further, in the category of dry electrodes, Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) based ECG electrodes have shown great potential in this domain. Due to the various advantages of CNTs like flexibility, conductivity, and lighter weight, it can be used to fabricate electrodes or can be embedded into the textiles. Thus, people suffering from CVDs can incorporate these electrodes / sensors in their daily lives for early detection of the disease, and the person's life can be saved. As CNTs are smart materials, easily and readily available, and most importantly available in low costs, they can be used for fabricating smart devices. These characteristics of CNTs make them a perfect candidate for biomedical applications. This paper reviews various works related to fabrication of multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) based electrodes, for ECG monitoring.