Graphene nano-platelets polyvinyl alcohol nanocomposite electrode for real time ECG signal acquisition

This paper highlights the development of graphene nanoplatelets polyvinyl alcohol(GNP@PVA) nanocomposite electrode to acquire real time Electrocardiogram(ECG) signal. In order to create GNP@PVA nanocomposite, solution casting was used. By drop casting the GNP@PVA nanocomposite onto a commercial silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) electrode with different GNP concentrations, namely 0, 0.5, 0.75, and 1 wt/wt% are created. The 3-lead ECG system is designed using Arduino microcontroller, GNP@PVA electrode and AD8232 sensor. To investigate the physical, spectral, and microcrystalline characteristics of the prepared nanocomposites, the prepared GNP@PVA electrode is subjected to various analyses, including scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy. The results demonstrated that ECG signals acquired by GNP@PVA (1%) has increased R peak value along with high sensitivity. To validate the performance and efficiency of designed GNP@PVA electrode, the acquired real time ECG signal is compared with commercial Ag/AgCl electrode. In contrast to commercial Ag/AgCl electrode, the designed GNP@PVA dry electrode has high signal to noise ratio of 21 due to high conductivity.