Most medical devices that come into contact with blood are made of synthetic materials. When blood comes into contact with it, it triggers a number of adverse reactions, such as platelet adhesion. This eventually leads to fibrin production and clot formation, which not only impairs the function of the device, but can also enter the patient's body and block blood vessels.
Alfa Chemistry has a variety of surface functionalization technologies capable of building coatings on the surface of your substrates to attract or repel blood and other medical bodily fluids. Coating options include hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and oleophobic surface-functionalized coatings. Contact us to create successful medical devices together!
Why Do You Need A Blood Medical Coating?
Surface coating solutions are available from us that can be utilized to tackle a number of surface issues in medical equipment. In certain of the following situations, you can utilize our surface modification coatings to improve product quality.
- Scale can build on the surface of your goods due to blood or other fluids.
- Fine blood microfluidic channels are required for your product.
- Your product must be protected from the passage of blood or other bodily fluids.
- Medical fluids will not moisten the surface of your product that you want it to be wet.
- Blood or other fluids may come into contact with your product, causing it to lose its optical performance.
Suitable Blood Medical Coating Solution
On the surface of your product, our surface modification methods for blood and other medicinal fluids will provide a consistent, optically clear, strong, and durable hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and/or oleophobic surface coating. Surface energy can measure water contact angles of 115°-120°, oil contact angles of 75°-85°, and water contact angles of less than 10°.
For applications requiring short-term hemocompatibility, the device's ability to repel platelets, proteins, cells, and other fouling materials is all that matters. Alfa Chemistry manufactures non-thrombotic coatings for medical devices that come into touch with blood for a limited period of time, such as catheters and introducers. Hydrogels are frequently utilized to make anti-adherent hemocompatible coatings because they may give lubricity and hemocompatibility on the same surface. On microcatheters, we apply light-activated hydrogel surface modifiers. When comparing uncoated polyethylene to polyethylene modified with light-activated hydrogels, the platelet surface concentration was substantially lower.
We also use bioactive coatings with substances like heparin in the formulation to prevent thrombus formation on device surfaces. Sulfated glycosaminoglycans, on the other hand, can leach and induce unintentional bleeding in implantable medical devices. We can make a tethered liquid perfluorocarbon coating instead of heparin by combining a perfluorohexane tethered layer with a thin perfluorodecalin liquid layer. With a 30° slope, the blood drop will immediately slip off the coated acrylic surface. Experiments on acrylic and polysulfone substrates reveal that the coating considerably inhibits fibrin adherence and polymerization.
Reference
- Leslie D. C, et al. (2014). "A Bioinspired Omniphobic Surface Coating on Medical Devices Prevents Thrombosis and Biofouling." Nat Biotechnol. 32(11): 1134-40.
