Materials Feature: Silver or Silver Chloride Ink

Voltera Team

fromVoltera

06 Mar, 2024

Source: Healthline

‍Silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) is a conductive ink typically used to print electrodes for biomedical applications.

This article was first published on

www.voltera.io

What is silver/silver chloride ink?

‍Silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) is a conductive ink typically used to print electrodes for biomedical applications. It’s a non-toxic, environmentally friendly ink with stable electrochemical potential used to create disposable on-skin medical electrodes for biosensors, like "ECG, EEG and TENS electrodes; defibrillator pads; transdermal drug delivery; biomedical sensors and reference electrodes," according to Creative Materials.

‍Source: Henkel

Features:

Silver-to-silver chloride ratios can be adjusted and blended to achieve different resistance values and sensitivity levels.
The ink has a smooth surface finish with excellent adhesion and crease resistance when printed onto polyester and plastic substrates.
Silver/silver chloride is compatible with screen printing and direct-ink-writing printing technology.

Smart health patches

‍Used in both healthcare and athletics applications, smart health patches deliver new capabilities in monitoring. These devices can continuously measure heart rate, brain activity, movement, and other body functions. Quad Industries’ Smart Health Patch, designed to optimize training for ultra-runners, is made using Henkel’s silver/silver chloride ink.

Source: Quad Industries

Source: Quad Industries‍

‍Silver/silver chloride ink is also used to print glucose sensors for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) patches like Freestyle Libre.

CGM patches are being widely adopted for diabetes management. Rather than pricking a finger several times a day to monitor glucose levels, the CGM continuously measures glucose in the blood and interfaces with a reader device or smartphone app. This allows patients to monitor glucose levels throughout the day and refine the timing for their insulin injections.

Source: Healthline

Source: Advanced Technologies and Polymer Materials for Surgical Sutures

Source: Henkel

In recent years, CGMs also have become a tool for athletic performance. Endurance athletes use CGMs to monitor for dips in glucose during training, and then methodically dial in their fuel strategy and nutrition plan accordingly. The Supersapiens glucose monitoring system is being leveraged by athletes like Crossfit Games champion Samantha Briggs, olympic triathlon gold medalist Kristian Blummenfelt, and endurance obstacle course world champion Ryan Atkins.

Source: Supersapiens

Silver/silver chloride ink can also be paired with TPU used to print stretchable interconnections for constructing medical sensor textiles and smart textile garments. Commercialization has been limited due to lack of cost-effective, standard fabrication processes that can be applied to a large variety of fabrics, but companies like Softmatter and Memtronik now offer customized smart-garment design and fabrication.

I want this ink. Where do I start?

‍Henkel Adhesive Technologies

If you work in the engineering world, you’re probably familiar with Loctite, a line of products by Henkel Adhesive Technologies. Loctite EDAG 7019 E&C is a silver/silver chloride conductive ink, formulated to provide excellent adhesion to the wide variety of substrates used in the manufacture of electrically conductive medical devices.

Read the datasheet here: LOCTITE EDAG 7019 E&C Technical Data Sheet

Henkel also sells a Loctite sensor demonstrator kit with twelve dry adhesive electrodes for medical research and technical material validation.

Henkel Adhesive Technologies have developed a wide portfolio of innovative solutions in adhesives, sealants, inks, and functional coatings.

Dupont

‍Another option is Dupont 5874 silver/silver chloride, which is designed for screen printing on polyester, and is suitable for a wide variety of biomedical applications. Dupont is an industry leader in materials development, combining scientific and applications development expertise to accelerate innovation.

Read the datasheet here: Dupont 5874 silver/silver chloride composition for screen printing

Kayaku Advanced Materials‍

Kayaku Advanced Materials also offers a silver/silver chloride conductive ink, designed for screen printing medical EEG and EKG sensors. Kayaku develops and manufactures innovative specialty materials to push the latest innovation trends.

Read the datasheet here: AGCL-675 SILVER/SILVER CHLORIDE INK

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Wireless power makes blind people see again

Tom van Nunen defended his thesis at the department of Electrical Engineering on February 8th, 2023.

09 Feb, 2023

More than 43 million people worldwide are blind. In the past 30 years, that number has increased by roughly 50 percent. Most blind people are born with normal vision and lose their sight over time, due to medical causes or an accident. Often, the visual cortex in the brain is still capable of interpreting electrical signals, but the eyes or the connection between the eyes and brain are damaged or lost. It is possible to restore some form of sight by providing the right electrical signals to the visual cortex with an implant. PhD researcher Tom van Nunen has designed a wireless energy transfer system to safely and reliably connect to the implant, and developed a prototype.

Optical information is picked up by the eyes and sent with neuroelectric signals to the visual cortex in the brain. Interpreting this input is what people perceive as seeing. It is known that even blind people are able to perceive some visual cues when their cortex is stimulated by electrical signals.

By establishing a connection between an external image source, such as a camera, and electrodes implanted in the visual cortex, a blind individual can experience a crude form of vision with these visual stimuli.

The NESTOR project, of which Van Nunens’s research is part, aims to create such a visual prosthesis. The brain implant the team is currently developing includes systems for wireless data transfer, controlling the electrodes and wireless energy transfer, among other things.

Wireless connection

In his PhD research, Van Nunen focussed on the development of the wireless connection between the input device and the implant. A wireless connection is much more comfortable, flexible and safe for the user of the implant, but the question is: are they stable and powerful enough?

Miniaturization is a continuous development in the world of medica

Podcast

Podcast: A Spy In The Belly

In this episode, we talk about a combined effort between ETH Zurich & the Swiss Federal Lab for Material Science (EMPA) to create “smart” internal bandages for safely patching patients post stomach/intestinal surgery while providing insight to the medical staff about the status of the patch to prevent leakages which can be fatal.

Daniel Mitchell

fromThe Next Byte

12 Jul, 2023

Biomedical Devices

- healthcare

- sensors

In this episode, we talk about a combined effort between ETH Zurich & the Swiss Federal Lab for Material Science (EMPA) to create “smart” internal bandages for safely patching patients post stomach/intestinal surgery while providing insight to the medical staff about the status of the patch to prevent leakages which can be fatal...

EPISODE NOTES

(0:42) - A Spy In The Belly

Transcript

Hey Folks, today we're talking about leaks in the stomach after abdominal surgery, it's a much bigger problem than you probably know about. And we also talked about this team that's made a spy in the belly. It's like a high-tech bandage that goes in the abdomen and solves all these problems. Let's jump right into it.

I'm Daniel, and I'm Farbod. And this is the NextByte Podcast. Every week, we explore interesting and impactful tech and engineering content from Wevolver.com and deliver it to you in bite sized episodes that are easy to understand, regardless of your background.

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Daniel: What's up everyone, like we said, we're talking all about this research, researchers have made a patch that you can put on during abdominal surgery, it's kind of like a band aid for your intestines inside your stomach after surgery, to me, I was like, well, the world needs this. What do we need this for? Doesn't seem like a little bit of overkill to have band aids when we already have like stitches and sutures and glue and all these other things, right? Turns out, it's actually really, really important. So, in stomach or intestine surgeries, leaks at the stitches are actually pretty frequent. It happens in above 5% of surgeries. And like, if it didn't happen to, or if even if it happened to 5% of people, but the consequences weren't that big. I'd be like, Alright, cool. Like, it's just like a minor complication. Maybe we can fix this pretty easily, right? Turns out that when this