I finally located James Roman's Dry Electrodes for Physiological Monitoring. It turns out to be in the library after all! For future reference, in case you do not have access to Stanford Libraries, the place to look is the Center for AeroSpace Information Technical Report Server, DO NOT use NASA Technical Reports Server (see I didn't even provide a link). I finally located the technical note with help from Eric at Government Documents. The classification scheme for this sort of material is poor because it is bound together so that a search on NASA TN D-3414, for instance, will fail because the reference is actually NASA TN D-3403-3423. Even searching on that doesn't work, I don't know how Eric did it, but he is the man.
Introduction
In pursuit of a solution for the rapid application of electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes for long term recording, Patten et al. [1-2] developed "dry" electrodes based on quick-drying conductive glue. The skin is first prepared by subjecting it to 3-seconds of an oscillating toothbrush soaked in electrode paste. Then, a thin layer of the glue is sprayed directly onto the skin using a spray gun or aerosol package. A thin non-shielded wire is captured in the spray. Finally, the electrode is sealed by spraying a second insulating coat. Because of the high impedance of these electrodes, amplifiers with input impedances in excess of 2 MΩ are required. At the time this was very large, though today people talk about trying to do 100s of GΩs or even TΩs.
Technical details
Conductive glue. The conductive glue consists of silver powder suspended in household cement. The exact recipe is given in [1] and is as follows: combine
Application. A DeVilbiss No. 156 atomizer with two valves and a glass supply bottle was modified to launch a lead wire into the spray using a spring-loaded release rod. Both valves were connected to a single air house, with one valve responsible for spraying the conductive glue and the other for blowing air for drying. The air pressure used was 20 pounds per square inch. The insulation-glue spray is applied using an aerosol container and dried using heated air.
Removal. Electrodes are removed by dissolving them in acetone. This is accomplished by patting them with saturated gauze sponges.
References
[1] C. W. Patten, F. B. Ramme, J. Roman, Dry Electrodes for Physiological Monitoring, Nasa Technical Note NASA TN D-3414, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C., May 1966.
[2] J. Roman, Flight Research Program III - High-Impedance Electrode Techniques, Nasa Technical Note D-3414 Supplement, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C., June 1966. Preprint of article published in Aerospace Medicine, August 1966.