title: Assessment of Carbon/Salt/Adhesive Electrodes for Surface Electromyography Measurements.
abstract: This paper presents the evaluation of novel electrodes for surface electromyography (sEMG) measurements. The electrodes are based on the mixture of carbon powder, quaternary salt, and viscoelastic polymeric adhesive (carbon/salt/adhesive or simply CSA), which when combined, provide the unique advantages of having longer (theoretically infinite) shelf life and potentially lower cost than Ag/AgCl hydrogel electrodes, consistent with FLEXcon's Patent #8 673 184. The 20 subjects were recruited to collect simultaneous recordings of sEMG signals using Ag/AgCl and CSA electrodes, side-by-side on triceps brachii, tibial anterior muscles, biceps brachii, and quadriceps femoris. Although CSA sEMG electrodes showed higher electrode-skin contact impedance for the frequency range of 4 Hz-2 kHz, no significant differences were found in the signals' amplitude between the two electrodes either during relaxation or contraction stages. Furthermore, correlations of the computed linear envelopes (>0.91), rms value envelopes (>0.91), and power spectral densities (>0.95) of the signals were found to be high between the two media. Detected ON- and OFF-times of contraction were also highly correlated (>0.9) and interchangeable (ON-time: bias = -0.02, variance = 0.11; OFF-time: bias = -0.04, variance = 0.23) between the two media. However, CSA sEMG electrodes exhibited a significantly better response to noise (38.3 ± 10.6 dB versus 32.7 ± 15.6 dB) and motion artifacts (24.1 ± 12.1 dB versus 16.6 ± 8.52 dB), and a significantly lower spectral deformation (1.32 ± 0.2 versus 1.46 ± 0.4). Ag/AgCl electrodes showed a significantly more peaked and sensitive response to EMG amplitude (67.9 ± 13.9 dB versus 65.4 ± 14.6 dB). Given no significant differences in many of the measures described earlier and the fact that CSA electrodes have an infinite shelf-life are potentially lower cost, and are more resistant to motion artifacts, the new electrodes provide an attractive alternative to Ag/AgCl electrodes for sEMG measurements.
authors: University of Connecticut Storrs CT 06269 USA.
authors: Hugo
authors: H
authors: Posada-Quintero
authors: University of Connecticut Storrs CT 06269 USA.
authors: Ryan
authors: R
authors: Rood
authors: FLEXcon Spencer MA 01562 USA.
authors: Ken
authors: K
authors: Burnham
authors: FLEXcon Spencer MA 01562 USA.
authors: John
authors: J
authors: Pennace
authors: University of Connecticut Storrs CT 06269 USA.
authors: Ki
authors: K
authors: Chon
keywords: Ag/AgCl hydrogel electrodes; Carbon/salt/adhesive electrodes; dry electrodes; surface electromyography