Electrode-Gel-Skin Interface Characterization and

Modeling for Surface Biopotential Recording:

Impedance Measurements and Noise

SAADI Hyem and ATTARI Mokhtar
Laboratory of Instrumentation (LINS)
Faculty of Electronics and Computers
USTHB, P.O.Box.32, Bab Ezzouar 16111, Algiers, Algeria
hy.saadi@gmail.com, mattari@usthb.dz


Abstract In this work, electrical impedance spectroscopy
(EIS) has been used to characterize the electrical properties of
the electrode-electrolyte interface and the electrode-skin
interface. The impedance was measured from face to face
Ag/AgCl electrode pairs, as well as the impedance of Ag/AgCl
electrodes placed on the human body surface, in the frequency
band from 0.05Hz to 1MHz. The obtained frequency responses
of each interface were analyzed to determine their electrical
models, with parameterization of the described impedance
models using an optimization program written in Matlab
source software. The thermal noises were also calculated for
both interfaces.
Keywords Impedance measurement; Electrode modeling;
Skin-Electrode interface; Impedance spectroscopy; Electrode
noise.
I. INTRODUCTION
Bioelectrodes play an important role in medicine and
biomedical applications. They are widely used for recording
bioelectrical potentials such as electroencephalography
(EEG), electrocardiography (ECG) and electromyography
(EMG). In these applications, biopotentials are low
amplitude signals that can be affected by a number of factors
including: skin, electrode and recording amplifiers which
limit the capacity of the acquisition system to reproduce it
with perfect fidelity [1, 2]. Because of the technology
progress, the amplifier does not need to be the dominant
noise source in biopotential recording. Although, electrodes
introduce significant noise component, its analysis is not
simple because it depends on the pair electrode-skin [3, 4].
Therefore, the electrode-skin contact impedance behavior
and its modeling are of crucial importance for high
resolution surface biopotential recording [5].
Surface bioelectrodes consist of a metallic surface and an
electrolyte in contact with the skin. This arrangement creates
two interfaces: metal-electrolyte and skin-electrolyte. The
skin-electrolyte interface is difficult to study because it
depends on skin properties, which differ from subject to
subject, while the metal-electrolyte interface is easier to
study [4]. In order to get an accurate electrical
characterization of the skin-electrode contact, it is necessary
to extract quantitative parameters of its impedance where
different methods exist. Previous studies have demonstrated
that the measurement of the DC skin-electrode impedance
does not provide sufficient information [6]. Because of the
capacitive component presented by the epidermal layer, AC
measurement is needed to obtain a precise estimate of the
skin-electrode interface [6].
This paper reports the results of impedance
measurements for both interfaces by EIS. Then, an analysis
of the frequency responses (magnitude and phase) permit to
define the electrical models. The obtained results provide
valuable information for the design of the input stage of
biopotential amplifier in order to avoid signal distortion and
to compute the electrode noise as well as the electrode-
amplifier noise.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP
Electrical characterization of biological media generally
passes through impedance measurements which is very
popular technique in biomedical field [7, 8]. In this work, it
is used to evaluate the complex impedance of the electrode-
electrolyte-skin interface over a wide range of frequencies,
producing a spectrum showing the change of impedance and
its phase within frequency. From these curves and using an
optimization program written in Matlab source software for
calculating resistive and capacitive components, electric
models are builded.
We carried out two sets of measurements from 0.05Hz to
1MHz using a Zurich Instruments HF2IS Impedance
analyzer [9] and commercial pre-gelled Ag/AgCl surface
disposable electrodes. These electrodes are the most
common electrodes in biomedical recording because of its
highly stable half-cell potential.
A. Electrode impedance
The first measurement set include a pair of Ag/AgCl
electrodes placed face to face. This experiment provides
information about the electrode-electrolyte interface, so it
models the electrode behavior. A sinusoidal voltage is
injected through one electrode from the analyzer; the
resulting signal is detected by the second one which is
2013 2nd International Conference on Advances in Biomedical Engineering
978-1-4799-0251-4/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE 49
connected to the input of the impedance analyzer. This
operation was repeated three times using three electrode
pairs. Nevertheless, this type of characterization can be very
useful to check if the electrode is outdated.
B. Skin/electrode impedance
This measurement set concerned electrodes placed on the
body surface of the subject. The two electrodes were placed
on the forearm few centimeters from each other without any
skin preparation. One electrode is fed with a sinusoidal
voltage from the analyzer, while the second is used to detect
the resulting signal from the skin and is then connected to
the input of the analyzer.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Electrode impedance measurement
The impedance is measured from electrodes placed face
to face. Both magnitude and phase are shown in Fig. 1 and
Fig.2. From these figures, we define the equivalent circuit
model of the electrode-electrolyte impedance as shown in
Fig.3. This circuit model comprises the separate components
for the diffuse layer (R
1
,

C
1)
and the compact layer (R
2
, C2)
as described in [10]. If we combined this impedance with a
voltage source representing the half-cell potential, we arrive
to the bioelectrode circuit model.
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Fig. 1. Impedance response of the electrode-electrolyte interface
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Fig. 2. Phase response of the electrode-electrolyte interface

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit model of the electrode-electrolyte impedance
A good electrode, from the electrical point of view will
have very low value of R
1
[11]. From Fig.1 and Fig.2, it is
noticed that the magnitude of the impedance is roughly equal
R
1
+R
2
at very low frequencies, whereas at higher
frequencies C
1
bypasses the effect of R
1
so the impedance is
now close to R
2
. At frequencies between these two limits, the
impedance is influenced by the value of the parallel
capacitance; therefore it decreases with increasing
frequencies. The phase angle decreases from about 0 then
after reaching a peak value it increases again toward 0.
To calculate the resistive and capacitive components of
the described impedance model, a program written in Matlab
source software was used. We estimated the shunt resistance
R
1
at 314 and the series resistance R
2
at 118. The
frequency at which the reactive component reaches its
maximum value is given by:

1 1
1
2 . .
f
R C
= (1)
Thus, C
1
is evaluated at 160F and C
2
at 60pF.
When the circuit model was simulated with these
components values; we find that C
1
was not well evaluated
and we conclude that the value of f must be lower than the
chosen one. So, parametric study was performed with
different values C
1
of as shown in the Fig.4 and Fig.5. Table
1 shows the retained impedance parameters.

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measurement
simulation C1=160F
simulation C1=250F
simulation C1=300F

Fig. 4. Comparison between the measured data (magnitude) and the
simulation data of circuit with different values of C1
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Measurement
Simulation C1=160F
Simulation C1=250F
Simulation C1=300F

Fig. 5. Comparison between the measured data (phase) and the simulation
data of circuit with different values of C1
50
TABLE I. FACE TO FACE ELCTRODES IMPEDANCE PARAMETERS

B. Skin/electrode impedance measurement
The impedance is measured from electrodes placed on
the body surface of two subjects (man and woman) where
measurements data are depicted in Fig. 6. From this figure it
can be seen that the impedance of the electrode-skin contact
is higher for woman than for man in low frequency. The
conductivity is also various in different parts of the body and
is highest in the forehead [12]. However, because of the
complexity of the phenomena defining the value of the
interfaces impedance, this latter is extremely variable from
one experiment to another.
In order to model this impedance, we consider only the
data measured from woman performed from very low
frequencies compared to these of man. Both magnitude and
phase responses are given hereafter in Fig.7 and Fig.8.
At very low frequencies the impedance is dominated by
the series combination of R
1
and R
2
whereas it tends to R
2
at
high frequencies. Between these two limits, the impedance is
influenced by the parallel capacitance so it decreases with
increasing frequencies. The phase angle decrease from 0,
reach -60 then it increases toward 0.
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Measurement data_Woman
Measurement data_Man


Fig. 6. Impedance of the electrode-skin contact in Man and Woman
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Fig. 7. Impedance response of the electrode-skin interface

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Fig. 8. Phase response of the electrode-skin interface
By analyzing the magnitude and phase responses of the
electrode-skin contact, we defined the equivalent circuit
model of its impedance presented in Fig. 9. The circuit
model comprises the double layer capacitance C
1
in parallel
with the charge transfer resistance R
1
and a series resistance
R
2
as already described [11][13]. The models parameters
were estimated following the previous procedure and Table
2 shows the impedance parameters.

Fig. 9. Equivalent circuit model of the electrode-skin impedance
TABLE II. ELCTRODE/SKINS IMPEDANCE PARAMETERS


The simulation results of the defined model for both
magnitude and phase were compared to the measured data.
The phase plots (Fig.10) show that the simulation plot
matches the measurements in a small frequency range only;
this indicates that the three element model is not suitable for
describing the electrode-skin impedance [6]. Kaczmarek and
Webster presented a more accurate model which describes
the skin-electrode interface as a double time constant system
with probably time-varying parameters [14]. In previous
work [6] [14], the magnitude and phase responses returned
satisfactory results when the double time constant model was
used.
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Measure
Simulation

Fig. 10. Comparison between the measured and the simulation data
(phase response)
Parameters R
1
R
2
C
1
C
2

Face to face
electrode
314 118 250F 60pF
One electrode 157 59 125F 30pF
Parameters R
1
R
2
C
1

value 929K 647 20nF
51
C. Noise Analysis
In the recording of biomedical signals, a noise
component is introduced by all subsystems in the
measurement chain. There are two noise sources that are
inherent to the measurement procedure: the electrode noise
and the amplifier noise. Skin-electrode interface noise was
simulated with low noise bioamplifier developed by us [15].
Fig.11 shows the bioamplifier input voltage noise with its
inputs shorted, then with impedance presenting the
electrode-skin interface connected to its inputs. It can be
clearly seen that the noise in both case has a 1/f character
with a maximum of about 5V/Hz at low frequencies.
However, amplifier voltage noise falls and tends to
16nV/Hz at higher frequencies along the desired frequency
range (of EEG and ECG), while electrode-amplifier noise
tends to about 205nV/Hz. Thus, we notice that the
significant noise component is introduced by the electrode-
skin interface impedance.
Furthermore, we computed the thermal noise
corresponding to the real part of the impedance both for
electrode placed face to face and for electrodes placed on the
skin, as shown in Fig.12. We observe that thermal noise of
pre-gelled electrodes placed face to face appears to be lower
than the noise generated from the electrodeskin interface
impedance.












Fig. 11. Equivalent input noise voltage of the proposed amplifier with
inputs shorted and with electrode-skin impedance.











Fig. 12. Calculated equivalent thermal noise from electrode placed face
to face and from electrode placed on skin
IV. CONCLUSION
The electrode-skin interface has been studied,
characterized and modeled. The obtained results show that
interface impedances decrease when frequency increases.
The electrode voltage noise power spectral density also
decreases with frequency, both for electrodes placed face to
face and for electrodes placed on the skin. Measurements on
electrodes placed face to face showed that the impedance of
metal-gel interface presents low impedance value. These
latter imply that the high impedance of electrodes placed on
the skin mainly originates from the gel-skin interface and the
upper skin layer. The electrode voltage noise power spectral
density also appears to originate for the main part, from the
gel-skin interface. Electrode-amplifier noise is characterized
by 1/f spectrum in low frequency range, and a white noise in
higher frequencies.
In future works, the electrode-skin interface must be
modeled using the double time constant system. On the other
hand, for further investigation into the origin of the noise of
surface electrodes, the noise of the interface must be
measured then compared to the equivalent thermal noise
from the impedance electrode.

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Amplifier with E/S impedance
Amplifier with inputs shorted

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