Epidermal electrode for epidermal signal acquisition and application thereof
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the field of epidermal signal acquisition equipment, relates to an epidermal electrode for acquiring an epidermal signal and application thereof, and particularly relates to an electrode for acquiring an electromyographic signal and application thereof.
Background
Electromyographic signals (EMG) are a complex result of the temporal and spatial integration of sub-epidermal muscular electrical activity at the skin surface. The electromyographic signals are derived from the own electric signals of people, so the electromyographic signals have the characteristics of direct and natural, are important information quantity nowadays, and can be used for the research on the aspects of muscle movement, muscle injury diagnosis, rehabilitation medicine, sports and the like. Therefore, electromyographic signals play an important role in the research and development of human locomotion and biomechanics.
The existing electrodes for collecting electromyographic signals are mostly hard silver/silver chloride surface electrodes, and the electrodes are integrated on an elastic bandage to contact with the skin through extrusion force, so that signals during muscle movement are collected. This way of acquiring signals by contact of the pressing force with the skin causes a certain discomfort, affecting the free movement of the muscles. In addition, the mechanical mismatch between the hard electrode and the soft tissue of the human body easily causes the disconnection of an interface circuit, and the authenticity of a signal is influenced.
Keeping the epidermal electrodes in conformal contact with the skin or tissue of a human body is one of the simple and convenient methods for realizing high-fidelity measurement of physical, chemical and biological signals of the human body. The metal or alloy nano-network electrode can form a conformal contact with skin texture due to the extremely thin thickness. In addition, the metal or alloy nano-network electrode also has the properties of air permeability, light weight and super-stretching due to the special network structure. The good air permeability enables the metal or alloy nano-network electrode not to obstruct the breathing of the skin to cause inflammation, and further avoids the discomfort of the skin. When the skin is dragged to deform by muscle movement, the structure of the metal or alloy nano-network electrode can not be damaged along with the deformation of the skin due to the super-tensile property of the metal or alloy nano-network electrode, so that the metal or alloy nano-network electrode is not separated from the skin by generating a gap, and good conformal contact is maintained. The metal or alloy nano-network electrode has the advantages of air permeability, light weight, super-stretching, conformal contact and the like, and is suitable for collecting high-fidelity skin signals and analyzing the movement information of muscle groups, thereby achieving the aim of health monitoring.
CN 207338688U discloses a skin electrode having a sensing contact, wherein the sensing contact comprises a combined contact capable of being electrically connected with an external element and a stretching contact connected with the combined contact, and the stretching ratio of the combined contact is smaller than that of the stretching contact. CN 107887079 a discloses a method for manufacturing the skin electrode, the skin electrode has a sensing contact, the method for manufacturing the skin electrode comprises the following steps: a) providing a metal film: the metal film comprises an upper metal layer and a lower metal layer, and a plastic layer is clamped between the upper metal layer and the lower metal layer; b) perforating: perforating at the position of the metal film where the sensing contact is to be formed; c) glue pouring: filling conductive adhesive into the through holes so that the upper metal layer and the lower metal layer are electrically connected through the conductive adhesive; d) and (3) full engraving: and punching or laser cutting the structure of the sensing contact piece on the metal film. The electrode prepared by the preparation method has a complex structure and poor fitting property with the human epidermis, and the derived electric signal has deviation with actual muscle information.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the technical problems in the prior art, the invention provides the epidermal electrode for acquiring the epidermal signal, and the epidermal electrode has the advantages of super-stretching, good air permeability and good skin conformal contact.
In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:
the invention aims to provide a skin electrode for skin signal acquisition, which is a metal or alloy network with the thickness of 5 nm-10 mu m.
The thickness of the skin electrode may be 5nm, 10nm, 50nm, 100nm, 200nm, 500nm, 800nm, 1 μm, 2 μm, 5 μm or 10 μm, but is not limited to the values listed, and other values not listed in the range of the values are also applicable.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the raw material of the metal network is any one of gold, silver or copper.
As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the raw material of the alloy network is an alloy composed of at least two of gold, silver, or copper, such as a gold-silver alloy, a gold-copper alloy, a copper-silver alloy, or a gold-silver-copper alloy.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the network has a line width of 10 to 200nm, such as 10nm, 20nm, 50nm, 80nm, 100nm, 120nm, 150nm, 180nm, or 200nm, but the network is not limited to the above-mentioned values, and other values not shown in the above-mentioned range are also applicable.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the mesh size of the network is 50nm to 100. mu.m, such as 50nm, 60nm, 80nm, 100nm, 200nm, 500nm, 800nm, 1 μm, 2 μm, 5 μm, 10 μm, 20 μm, 50 μm or 100 μm, but is not limited to the values listed, and other values not listed within this range of values are equally applicable.
As a preferable technical solution of the present invention, the network structure independently includes any one of a square network structure, a rectangular network structure, a diamond network structure, a hexagonal network structure, a round hole network structure, a crack type network structure, a serpentine network structure, a nanowire network structure, or a polymer-phase-separated random network structure.
As a preferable technical scheme of the invention, the surface electrode is connected with an external electronic component through flexible conductive adhesive.
As a preferred technical solution of the present invention, the flexible conductive adhesive includes any one of or a combination of at least two of flexible conductive silver adhesive, flexible conductive carbon adhesive, or metal nanowires.
The invention also aims to provide application of the epidermal electrode, and the epidermal electrode is used for collecting the electromyographic signals of the epidermis.
As the preferable technical scheme of the invention, the epidermal electrodes are manufactured into an electrode array for multi-channel acquisition of muscle movement information.
The preparation method of the epidermal electrode for acquiring the epidermal signal provided by the invention comprises the following steps:
(1) obtaining a metal or alloy conductive network with nanometer thickness by adopting a conventional or unconventional nanometer technology processing method or a chemical synthesis method;
(2) patterning the metal or alloy conductive network obtained in the step (1) to obtain a patterned metal conductive network;
(3) transferring the patterned metal or alloy conductive network obtained in the step (2) to the skin;
(4) and (4) interconnecting the skin electrode obtained in the step (3) with an external electronic component or an external instrument to form a flexible electronic skin electrode.
Wherein, the conventional or unconventional nanotechnology processing method in the step (1) comprises a grain boundary transfer printing method, a spinning template method (including electrostatic spinning and biological spinning), a nanowire spraying method or a laser cutting metal film method and the like.
Wherein, the metal or alloy nanostructure network in the step (1) is selected from any one of an integrated network film and a composite network film formed by coating nanowires;
wherein, the patterning method of the metal or alloy conductive network in the step (3) is selected from any one of a sticky tape template transfer method and a photoetching patterning method.
Compared with the prior art, the invention at least has the following beneficial effects:
(1) the metal or alloy network epidermal electrode with the nanometer thickness can be combined with the skin texture in a highly smooth manner to form good contact, and the metal or alloy network epidermal electrode is light in weight and cannot influence the free movement of organisms;
(2) the epidermal electrode with the network structure has good air permeability, does not obstruct normal breathing of the skin, and has good biocompatibility with the skin;
(3) the epidermis electrode of network structure has better tensile performance, maintains good shape contact with the skin, and the electrode can follow skin deformation but electrode structure does not take place to destroy, can not appear because of the condition that produces the clearance and separate with the skin, therefore under the condition that skin produces deformation, this epidermis electrode also can collect high-fidelity epidermis signal.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a flow chart of the preparation of the gold nano-network as the skin electrode and the display of the patterned gold nano-network skin electrode on the skin of a human body in example 1;
FIG. 2 is a scanning electron microscope image of the gold nano-network of embodiment 1 attached to the epidermis of a human body in a conformal manner;
FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the amount of evaporated water and time for the smooth cloth and the smooth cloth containing the gold nano-network according to example 1;
FIG. 4 is a resistance response test curve of 3000 bending cycles of the skin electrode of the gold nano-network described in example 1 on a finger joint;
fig. 5 is a skin electromyographic signal of the biceps brachii muscle of a human body acquired by the skin electrode of the gold nano network in embodiment 1.
The present invention is described in further detail below. The following examples are merely illustrative of the present invention and do not represent or limit the scope of the claims, which are defined by the claims.
Detailed Description
The technical scheme of the invention is further explained by the specific implementation mode in combination with the attached drawings.
To better illustrate the invention and to facilitate the understanding of the technical solutions thereof, typical but non-limiting examples of the invention are as follows:
example 1
In this embodiment, a gold nano-network obtained by a grain boundary transfer method is used as a skin electrode material, the gold nano-network is patterned by a sugar transfer method, flexible conductive silver nano-particles are used as flexible electrodes interconnected with an external electronic component or a test circuit, and a schematic flow chart of preparing the gold nano-network skin electrode is shown in fig. 1(a), and includes the following steps:
(1) transferring the gold nano network obtained by the grain boundary transfer method to flexible polydimethylsiloxane;
(2) preparing a bendable plastic mask plate by using a laser cutting machine for patterning the gold nano-network;
(3) patterning and transferring the gold nano network by adopting a sucrose transfer method, placing a plastic mask plate with a required pattern on the gold nano network, and casting a molten sucrose film;
(4) when the sucrose is cooled to 25 ℃ and solidified, the sucrose becomes sufficiently viscous to peel off the gold nanoweb and transfer to the skin; and finally, washing off the sucrose by using deionized water to obtain the surface electrode of the gold nano network with the required pattern.
The surface electrode of the gold nano-network structure prepared by the method is an integrated network film, and the thickness of the network film is 30 nm.
Fig. 2 is a scanning electron microscope picture of the gold nano-network on the epidermis of the human body, and as can be seen from fig. 2, the gold nano-network can form perfect conformal contact with the skin texture of the human body.
FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the amount of water evaporated and permeated by a smooth gas-permeable membrane covered with a gold nano-network and a blank smooth gas-permeable membrane, and it can be seen from FIG. 3 that the gas-permeable curves of the two are consistent in height, which shows that the gold nano-network of the present invention has a good gas permeability.
Fig. 4 is a conductivity monitoring curve of the gold nano-network along with complete circulation of the finger joint for 3000 times, and the result shows that the gold nano-network still has stable and good conductivity along with skin deformation.
The obtained gold nano-network is interconnected with an electromyographic signal tester through a flexible silver nano-wire, and electromyographic signals of the biceps brachii of the human body during a fist holding action are collected, as shown in fig. 5. The electromyographic signal has the characteristics of stability, high sexual noise ratio and high fidelity.
Therefore, the metal nano network has the advantages of ventilation, light weight, super-stretching, conformal contact and the like, is suitable for collecting high-fidelity myoelectric signals, and can be used for analyzing the information of muscle group movement.
Example 2
The preparation method of the silver nanowire composite grid is a nanowire spraying method, and the preparation method comprises the following steps:
(1) transferring the silver nano network obtained by the nanowire spraying method to flexible polydimethylsiloxane;
(2) preparing a bendable plastic mask plate for patterning the silver nano network by adopting a laser cutting machine;
(3) patterning and transferring the silver nano network by adopting a sucrose transfer method, placing a plastic mask plate with a required pattern on the silver nano network, and casting a molten sucrose film;
(4) when the sucrose was cooled to 25 ℃ and solidified, the sucrose became sufficiently viscous, peeled from the silver nano-network and transferred to the skin; and finally, washing off the sucrose by using deionized water to obtain the epidermal electrode with the silver nano network structure.
The surface electrode of the silver nano network structure prepared by the method is a composite network film formed by randomly arranging nanowires, and the thickness of the composite network film is 50 nm.
Example 3
The preparation method of the copper nanowire composite grid is an electrostatic spinning method, and comprises the following steps:
(1) preparing a polyvinyl alcohol composite network structure with the diameter of about 200nm by adopting an electrostatic spinning method;
(2) evaporating a layer of copper with the thickness of 30nm on the obtained polyvinyl alcohol composite network to obtain a copper nano network electrode based on an electrostatic spinning method;
(3) transferring the copper nano network obtained by the electrostatic spinning method to flexible polydimethylsiloxane;
(4) preparing a bendable plastic mask plate by adopting a laser cutting machine for patterning a copper nano network;
(5) and patterning and transferring the copper nano network by using a self-adhesive tape template transfer method to obtain the surface electrode with the copper nano network structure.
The surface electrode of the copper nano network structure prepared by the method is a network film formed by randomly arranging nano wires, and the thickness of the surface electrode is 2 mu m.
Example 4
The preparation method of the copper-silver alloy nanowire composite grid is a biological spinning method, and comprises the following steps:
(1) obtaining a nanowire network by adopting biological spinning methods such as silk and silk;
(2) depositing a layer of copper-silver alloy with the thickness of 30nm on the obtained biological spinning composite network to obtain a copper-silver alloy nano network electrode based on an electrostatic spinning method;
(3) transferring the copper-silver alloy nano network obtained by the biological spinning method to flexible polydimethylsiloxane;
(4) preparing a bendable plastic mask plate by using a laser cutting machine for patterning the copper-silver alloy nano network;
(5) and patterning and transferring the copper nano network by using a self-adhesive tape template transfer method to obtain the surface electrode with the copper-silver alloy nano network structure.
The surface electrode of the copper-silver alloy nano-network structure prepared by the method is an integrated network film, and the thickness of the network film is 1 mu m.
Example 5
The preparation method of the gold-silver alloy nanowire composite grid is a laser cutting metal film method, and the preparation method comprises the following steps:
(1) transferring the gold-silver alloy nano network with the required pattern obtained by a laser cutting metal film method to flexible polydimethylsiloxane;
(2) patterning and transferring the gold-silver alloy nano network by adopting a sucrose transfer method, placing a plastic mask plate with a required pattern on the gold-silver alloy nano network, and casting a molten sucrose film;
(3) when the sucrose is cooled to 25 ℃ and solidified, the sucrose becomes viscous enough to be peeled from the gold-silver alloy nano-network and transferred to the skin; finally, washing off the sucrose by using deionized water to obtain the surface electrode with the gold-silver alloy nano-network structure.
The skin electrode of the gold-silver alloy nano-network structure prepared by the method is an integrated network film, and the thickness of the network film is 200 nm.
The applicant declares that the present invention illustrates the detailed structural features of the present invention through the above embodiments, but the present invention is not limited to the above detailed structural features, that is, it does not mean that the present invention must be implemented depending on the above detailed structural features. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that any modifications of the present invention, equivalent substitutions of selected components of the present invention, additions of auxiliary components, selection of specific modes, etc., are within the scope and disclosure of the present invention.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail, however, the present invention is not limited to the specific details of the above embodiments, and various simple modifications may be made to the technical solution of the present invention within the technical idea of the present invention, and these simple modifications are within the protective scope of the present invention.
It should be noted that the various technical features described in the above embodiments can be combined in any suitable manner without contradiction, and the invention is not described in any way for the possible combinations in order to avoid unnecessary repetition.
In addition, any combination of the various embodiments of the present invention is also possible, and the same should be considered as the disclosure of the present invention as long as it does not depart from the spirit of the present invention.