A Bioinspired Sweat‐Drainable Janus Electrophysiological Electrode for Scientific Sports Training

Abstract

AbstractRecent technological innovations in wearable electronics offer possibilities to perform real‐time monitoring of electrophysiological parameters, such as ECG, EMG, and EEG. To achieve accurate and long‐term electrophysiological measurement, great signs of progress have been made in the skin–electrode interfacial problems; nevertheless, the challenges related to sweat have not been fully resolved. Excessive sweat between human skin and the electrode usually fails to achieve a conformal and intact contact, and the nonconductive barriers will lead to a high skin–electrode impedance. Inspired by the structure of liquid directional movement in nature, a Janus gold nanowires/nitrocellulose (AuNWs/NC) electrophysiological electrode with conical micropores is developed to solve interfacial problems caused by sweat. The Janus AuNWs/NC electrodes spontaneously wick sweat from the AuNW side to the NC side, thus keeping intimate skin–electrode contact and low interfacial impedance to ensure a high‐fidelity signal during the long‐term monitoring. By integrating Janus AuNWs/NC electrode with circuit modules and advanced algorithms, a real‐time visualization system is developed for muscle activity intensity. This system is applied to precisely evaluate the muscle controllability and assess the muscle balance ability, which presents great potentials for health monitoring, sports training, and the areas of human–computer interaction.