Background Driven by the dual impetus of real-time health monitoring and intelligent technology innovation, flexible electronic sensing devices were deeply integrated with modern textile technologies, thereby reshaping a new landscape for the development of wearable medical monitoring equipment. Among these devices, electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring textiles were recognized as a crucial research and application direction in this field, due to their dual advantages of wearing comfort and real-time physiological signal acquisition capability. The core value of ECG monitoring textiles was embodied in the realization of a seamless "wear-and-monitor" experience. The key to achieving this goal lay in the efficient and stable integration of conductive materials with flexible textile substrates, which not only ensured that the electrical conductivity met the requirements for ECG signal transmission, but also satisfied the wearing demands of textiles, such as softness, air permeability and wash resistance.

Analysis/Progress In this paper, the research and application limitations of traditional conductive materials in wearable ECG monitoring textiles were first reviewed. Although metal materials among traditional conductive materials exhibited excellent electrical conductivity, they were poor in flexibility and prone to oxidation, which could easily cause skin discomfort during long-term wearing and failed to adapt to the deformation requirements of textiles. Inorganic semiconductor materials featured high brittleness and poor compatibility with textile substrates, as a result, the conductive layers were liable to peel off after repeated washing or stretching, leading to the attenuation of monitoring performance. Subsequently, the molecular structures and composite properties of conductive polymers were commented on. Conductive polymers were classified into two categories, namely intrinsic conductive polymers and filled conductive polymers, according to their preparation mechanisms. Both types of materials were characterized by designable molecular structures and adjustable physical and chemical properties, enabling the precise matching of electrical conductivity and textile characteristics through molecular modification, component optimization and other approaches. Among them, intrinsic conductive polymers, such as polypyrrole (PPy) and polyaniline (PANI), were able to realize charge transport through conductive pathways formed by conjugated double bonds; their molecular chain flexibility allowed them to be directly combined with textile fibers, and their conductivity and stability could be flexibly regulated via doping treatment. Filled conductive polymers, on the other hand, used flexible polymers as the matrix, in which conductive particles including carbon nanotubes and graphene were uniformly dispersed. This structure not only retained the inherent properties of the substrates but also guaranteed signal transmission efficiency through the construction of conductive networks. Finally, the research achievements obtained in the progress of conductive polymers applied in wearable ECG monitoring textiles were summarized. Meanwhile, the existing problems were analyzed, namely intrinsic conductive polymers faced challenges such as sweat stability and multi-sensor signal interference in practical applications, while filled conductive polymers were troubled by issues including filler dispersion and motion artifacts.

Conclusion/Prospect Future research and development should focus on strengthening surface modification technologies to improve the dispersibility of fillers in conductive polymers. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms should be introduced to construct signal denoising models, so as to solve the problems of motion artifacts, multi-sensor interference and stability under long-term complex environments. These efforts are expected to promote the transformation of conductive polymer-based wearable ECG monitoring textiles from basic research to industrialization.