Paintable Carbon Nanotube Coating-Based Textronics for Sustained Holter-Type Electrocardiography

Sławomir Boncel; Rafał G Jędrysiak; Marek Czerw; Anna Kolanowska; Anna W Blacha; Maciej Imielski; Bertrand Jóźwiak; Marzena H Dzida; Heather F Greer; Aleksander Sobotnicki

doi:10.1021/acsanm.2c03904

Paintable Carbon Nanotube Coating-Based Textronics for Sustained Holter-Type Electrocardiography

ACS Appl Nano Mater. 2022 Oct 28;5(10):15762-15774. doi: 10.1021/acsanm.2c03904. Epub 2022 Oct 7.

Authors

Sławomir Boncel^{1

2}, Rafał G Jędrysiak^{1

2}, Marek Czerw^{3

4}, Anna Kolanowska^{1

2

5

6}, Anna W Blacha^{1

2}, Maciej Imielski^{1

2}, Bertrand Jóźwiak^{1

2

7}, Marzena H Dzida⁸, Heather F Greer⁹, Aleksander Sobotnicki³

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Organic Chemistry, Bioorganic Chemistry and Biotechnology, NanoCarbonGroup, Silesian University of Technology, Krzywoustego 4, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
² Centre for Organic and Nanohybrid Electronics, Silesian University of Technology, Konarskiego 22B, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
³ Łukasiewicz Research Network Institute of Medical Technology and Equipment, Roosevelta 118, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland.
⁴ Department of Biosensors and Processing of Biomedical Signals, Silesian University of Technology, Roosevelta 40, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland.
⁵ Department of Physical Chemistry and Technology of Polymers, Silesian University of Technology, Marcina Strzody 9, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
⁶ Biotechnology Centre, Silesian University of Technology, Krzywoustego 8, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
⁷ Department of Chemical Engineering and Process Design, Silesian University of Technology, Marcina Strzody 7, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
⁸ Institute of Chemistry, University of Silesia in Katowice, Szkolna 9, 40-006 Katowice, Poland.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, U.K.

Abstract

A growing population suffering from or at high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases can benefit from rapid, precise, and readily available diagnostics. Textronics is an interdisciplinary approach for designing and manufacturing high-performance flexible electronics integrated with textiles for various applications, with electrocardiography (ECG) being the most convenient and most frequently used diagnostic technique for textronic solutions. The key challenges that still exist for textronics include expedient manufacturing, adaptation to human subjects, sustained operational stability for Holter-type data acquisition, reproducibility, and compatibility with existing solutions. The present study demonstrates conveniently paintable ECG electroconductive coatings on T-shirts woven from polyester or 70% polyamide and 30% polyester. The up to 600-μm-thick coatings encompass working electrodes of low resistivity 60 Ω sq^-1 sheathed in the insulated pathways-conjugable with a wireless, multichannel ECG recorder. Long (800 μm) multiwalled carbon nanotubes, with scalable reproducibility and purity (18 g per round of synthesis), constituted the electroactive components and were embedded into a commercially available screen-printing acrylic base. The resulting paint had a viscosity of 0.75 Pa·s at 56 s^-1 and 25 °C and was conveniently applied using a paintbrush, making this technique accessible to manufacturers. The amplified and nondigitally processed ECG signals were recorded under dry-skin conditions using a certified ECG recorder. The system enabled the collection of ECG signals from two channels, allowing the acquisition of cardiac electrical activity on six ECG leads with quality at par with medical diagnostics. Importantly, the Holter-type ECG allowed ambulatory recording for >24 h under various activities (sitting, sleeping, walking, and running) in three male participants. The ECG signal was stable for >5 cycles of washing, a level of stability not reported yet previously. The developed ECG-textronic application possesses acceptable and reproducible characteristics, making this technology a suitable candidate for further testing in clinical trials.