Fiber engineering for advanced medical and healthcare products

3 Fiber engineering for advanced medical and healthcare products 

Microfibers are fibers that are less than one denier per filament—100 times finer than a human hair. Textiles produced with microfiber yams are softer and possess better drape than conventional products. Microfibers can be made from polyester, polyamide, polypropylene, and many other fiber-forming polymers. These fibers can be made into fabrics with dimensionally stable, lightweight, waterproof, and easy-care characteristics. 

As an example, to give functional fibers bioactivities, Cupron Inc. utilized the bioactivities of copper to develop a new type of copper-containing antimicrobial fiber. During the melt-spinning process, copper oxide nanoparticles were mixed into the 

In the electrospinifing process, a strong electrical field is applied to a droplet formed by a polymer solution or polymer melt at the tip of a die acting as one of the electrodes. The counter electrode is located over a distance. The charging of the fluid leads eventually to the ejection of a jet from the tip of the cone. The charged jet is accelerated toward the counter electrodes and thins rapidly during this period due to elongation and evaporation of the solvent, until solid fibers are deposited on to the substrate located on top of the counter electrode in a random fashion. 

HoUow fibers are widely used for filtration, utilizing the semipermeable nature of their capillary walls. In the medical industry, hollow fiber bioreactors are often made from cellulose and synthetic polymers. Cellulose acetate and cuprammonium rayon are the widely used ceUulose-based hollow fibers, while synthetic hollow fibers are often made from polysulfone, polyamide, and polyacrylonitrile. Modifications can be made to these materials to improve their functions by using polymers based on phospholipid, a substance found in the human cell membrane. 2-methaCTyloyloxyethyl phosphoryl-choline (MPC) is a methacrylate monomer with a phospholipid polar group. When MPC-based copolymers are used as additives for polysulfone, protein adsorption and platelet adhesion can be effectively reduced, thereby improving blood compatibility. Cellulose acetate hollow fiber membranes can also be modified with MPC-based copolymers by means of blending or surface coating to obtain improved permeability. 

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