Potato peels-based electrodes for recording ECG and EMG signals

Abstract

Reliable measurement and acquisition of physiological parameters is among critical tasks in human health monitoring. While the presence of personalized measurement of Electrocardiography (ECG) and Electromyography (EMG) devices enables more frequent data collection, and consequently better health monitoring, it also leads to higher consumption of electrodes. On the other hand, commonly used Ag/AgCl electrodes are not free of charge or biodegradable. Therefore, their extensive use leads to higher costs and higher waste production. In this paper, we present an approach for the development of ECG/EMG electrodes that are based on biodegradable materials (two potato types). We performed successful integration of potato peel-based electrodes with the commercial device as well as with our in-house developed portable system. Measurements on 8 healthy volunteers revealed very small differences when heart rate, inter-beat-interval or normal-to-normal intervals are extracted from the ECG signal with potato peel-based and commercial Ag/AgCl electrodes. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing biodegradable potato peel-based electrodes for ECG and EMG measurements, showcasing their comparable performance to traditional Ag/AgCl electrodes in capturing physiological parameters. We introduced biodegradable electrodes as a viable and eco-friendly alternative for accurate ECG and EMG measurements, addressing the issues of electrode waste and cost associated with conventional electrodes.