Effect of Fabric Electrode Surface Coating Medium on ECG Signal Quality under Dynamic and Static Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors studied an electroless silver-plated conductive cotton fabric for ECG signal quality under dynamic and static conditions. This study strongly overlaps with the article published in Sensors (DOI:10.3390/s18113890), which presented a much more detailed study of the electroless silver-plated conductive cotton fabric with PEDOT:PSS. This also investigated the effects of washing on the signal. Another study also using this type of approach was published this year in ACS Appl. Polym. Mater. (DOI:10.1021/acsapm.1c01619). The reviewer believes that the data and approach presented do not meet novelty standards and therefore cannot be accepted in this journal.

One of the major drawbacks of this manuscript is that they only evaluated signal quality under dynamic and static conditions based on their tissue electrode. The tissue they use is similar to those I mentioned earlier in my report, and these published papers have already done a lot of work and characterization. The authors were simply looking at what would happen if they used the tissue under static and dynamic conditions

The paper is well written and their hypothesis testing and data are adequate for their problem, but their hypothesis is very simplistic and limited to using the tissue under the conditions mentioned. Another shortcoming is that (probably due to the fact that the article has already been published) they have not fully characterized their tissue themselves. Probably the authors could extend their hypothesis to running, where sweat plays a role.

Author Response

Dear review,

Thanks for your  comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Effect of Fabric Electrode Surface Coating Medium on ECG Signal Quality under Dynamic and Static Conditions” (coatings-2093973). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as for guiding our research. Here are our responses to the comments and remarks of the reviewers:

1.The authors studied an electroless silver-plated conductive cotton fabric for ECG signal quality under dynamic and static conditions. This study strongly overlaps with the article published in Sensors (DOI:10.3390/s18113890), which presented a much more detailed study of the electroless silver-plated conductive cotton fabric with PEDOT:PSS. This also investigated the effects of washing on the signal. Another study also using this type of approach was published this year in ACS Appl. Polym. Mater. (DOI:10.1021/acsapm.1c01619).

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. There are indeed many studies on the influence of conductive coatings on the quality of ECG signals, but the focus of this article is to study the influence of the medium on the signal and explore whether the interface state between the fabric electrode and the skin can improve the quality of ECG signals. For example, Parts 3.1 and 3.2 of this article compare the changes before and after adding the medium, and the results show that adding the medium is effective for improving signal quality. These content and relevant references are also added to the introduction in this article. The effects of the washability of the electrode, the composition and content of the medium, and the sweat caused by running will be carried out in our future studies.

2.One of the major drawbacks of this manuscript is that they only evaluated signal quality under dynamic and static conditions based on their tissue electrode. The tissue they use is similar to those I mentioned earlier in my report, and these published papers have already done a lot of work and characterization. The authors were simply looking at what would happen if they used the tissue under static and dynamic conditions.

Response: We have read the article mentioned in your report carefully, which is very well written, and we are very inspired. The focus of this paper is to study the influence of medium and solve the signal problem of dry electrode. The research results show that only by simply adding medium, the fabric electrode used in this study can achieve the effect of wet electrode. And in future studies, we'll do more research.

3.The paper is well written and their hypothesis testing and data are adequate for their problem, but their hypothesis is very simplistic and limited to using the tissue under the conditions mentioned. Another shortcoming is that (probably due to the fact that the article has already been published) they have not fully characterized their tissue themselves. Probably the authors could extend their hypothesis to running, where sweat plays a role.

Response: Thank you very much for your affirmation of this research work. The hypothesis in this article is indeed limited to the use of the above conditions to explore the influence of the medium on the ECG signal, and the tissue composition of the medium has not been fully studied and described in depth. Later, we will do further research on this part in depth and extend hypothesis to whether running sweat can play a greater role. Thank you for your suggestion again.

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the authors prepare cotton fabric electrodes that are integrated into a physiotherapy-grade elastic bandage to assemble fabric ECG tape. The fabric electrode-skin impedance is measured. It is shown that the electrode-skin contact impedance is greatly reduced after coating the fabric electrode with the dielectric reagent and that, after applying the conducive paste coating, the impedance meets the standard requirement for textile dry electrode skin impedance.

The paper reports a well-conducted experimental work that can be of interest to a specialized audience.

The manuscript is clear and well-organized. It can be published after a revision.

 Here are suggestions for the authors:

1. The authors should better motivate their work and show the importance of their finding compared to the ongoing research in the field. As presented, the manuscript appears more like a laboratory report than a research paper.

2. It is stated that the silver-plated cotton conductive fabric was self-made. I wonder how reproducible this conductive fabric is and if it is like anything that can be found on the market.

3. There are typos to correct. Examples: “This The electrode impedance value…”, “and the coorelation coefficient”, “This In this paper,…”, etc.

4. Figure 1.  Add scale bars to give the size of the silver plated fabric electrode.

5. Figure 5 shows that the cotton fabric electrode has a downward trend with the increase of frequency. The authors should explain this behavior as a function of frequency.

6. It might be worth plotting the contact impedance of Figure 5 on a log scale. A log-log plot could make the trend above 10 Hz clearer. 

Author Response

Thanks for your  comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Effect of Fabric Electrode Surface Coating Medium on ECG Signal Quality under Dynamic and Static Conditions” (coatings-2093973). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as for guiding our research. Here are our responses to the comments and remarks of the reviewers:

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have considered all the reviewer's suggestions. The paper has been improved accordingly and can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your  comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Effect of Fabric Electrode Surface Coating Medium on ECG Signal Quality under Dynamic and Static Conditions” (coatings-2093973). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as for guiding our research. Thank you  for your suggestions on our paper again.

Thank you and best regards.

Yours sincerely