Electrodes made of liquid metal ink
Painting on the skin allows you to know the inner world of a person
ChemPort.Ru based on the materials of RSC: Painting circuits on skinA drawing applied to the patient's skin using liquid metal ink will help in the future to make monitoring of cardiac activity much less painful and even allow doctors to observe a number of vital signs in real time.
Scientists used ink to draw electrodes on the skin; in the future, such electrodes can also be used to monitor muscle or brain activity (Yang Yu, Jie Zhang, Jing Liu, Biomedical Implementation of Liquid Metal Ink as Drawable ECG Electrode and Skin Circuit // PLoS ONE, March 5, 2013).
To date, doctors monitor the patient's heartbeat by registering electrical signals of the heart muscle using electrocardiography. To do this, in Western medicine, disposable electrodes are attached to the patient's chest with adhesive paper. An electrically conductive gel between the skin and the electrode helps to transmit electrical signals to a fixed metal anode that is connected to the recording system. However, removing these electrodes after EGC registration can cause pain.
An electrical diagram printed on the palm of your hand. Two batteries power the LEDs included in the circuit
(Drawing from an article in PLoS One)
Flexible electrodes that repeat the outline of the body, like a temporary tattoo, are more convenient in comparison with traditional electrodes used in electrocardiography. Qin Liu from Tsinghua University in China and his colleagues thought that there might be another way to create flexible, convenient electrodes that can be applied directly to the skin in the form of a pattern using metal ink.
Scientists have worked on the development of the composition of gallium-based liquid metal ink, adding 0.3% gallium oxide to them. This allowed the ink to stick to the skin like liquid paint, rather than rolling on it like a drop of water.
The researchers used the new ink to draw ECG electrodes on volunteer student Yang Yu. They connected the electrodes to a wireless module that recorded electrical signals from the subject's heart and transmitted the information to a mobile phone for its visualization. The heartbeat information recorded using liquid metal electrodes was comparable to an electrocardiogram obtained using the currently existing standard clinical technique.
Liu says the new liquid metal electrodes can be easily removed with medical alcohol. According to him, the ink hardens when the alcohol evaporates, which makes it easy to remove electrodes or circuits with a simple exfoliation.
Liu suggests the possibility of using liquid metal electrodes for simple biomedical monitoring of the patient's condition directly at his location, providing the opportunity to register weak signals of the brain or muscles. Ink can also be useful for drawing on the entire surface of the body in order to monitor the state of the body, adds Liu.
Chemical engineer Michael Dickey from the University of North Carolina says that direct contact between the skin and liquid metallic ink seems ideal for observing electrical characteristics. However, he fears the potential toxicity of metallic ink.
Liu agrees that additional long-term testing is required to ensure the safety and effectiveness of liquid metal ink. However, he adds that there are some arguments in favor of the fact that gallium-based materials are safe in terms of biomedical applications. Thus, gallium alloy is used in dentistry, and the radioactive nuclide 67 Ga is used in medicine in radiography.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru26.03.2013