Application of plasma treatment machine in biomedical industry

Medical catheters

There are many kinds of materials used in medical catheters, and almost all materials that can be used to make tubes have been tried. The catheter can be made into different shapes according to different usage requirements. After a lot of practical accumulation, people have found that polyvinyl chloride, silicone rubber, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polymethyl methacrylate, ABS, polycarbonate, etc. can be used as materials for making medical catheters, but most polymer materials are non-polar polymers with weak boundary layers on their surfaces. When they are applied on the surface, they have low bonding strength with the material interface and it is difficult to form a comparable bonding strength with the adhesive.

The biggest advantage of plasma treatment is that polar groups or active points can be introduced on the surface of the medical catheter without affecting the mechanical properties and physical and chemical properties of the medical catheter body, thereby increasing the surface activity and surface energy, transforming the non-polar surface into a polar surface, and enhancing the van der Waals force between the adhesive material and the adhesive, thereby achieving the purpose of improving the bonding of the material.

For example, for medical PTFE products, plasma surface treatment has multiple effects on PTFE, including improving surface adhesion, making it easier to bond with glue, coating or other materials; cleaning the surface, removing dirt and impurities, and improving surface quality; improving wettability, thereby improving lubrication performance; increasing wear resistance and extending service life; improving coating performance, enhancing the adhesion and quality of the coating; and increasing surface energy, making it easier to interact with other materials.

Heart and vascular stents

Because the human body itself has rejection, the introduction of heart and vascular stents will cause the body to regard the stent as a foreign body and the contact area between the stent and the arterial membrane as a trauma area. With trauma, the human body must repair it. As a result, an inflammatory reaction will occur at the stent of the artery.

After much effort, researchers finally combined drugs and stents together, that is, "plating" a layer of drug film on the surface of the metal stent. However, the chemical properties of the metal stent itself are not easy to combine with the drug film, and the metal itself needs to be modified. Although the chemical modification method can increase the hydrophilicity of the metal, there is still a little danger, such as the residue of chemical agents. Low-temperature plasma treatment technology is a neutral, pollution-free dry treatment, which can not only clean the surface of the substrate, but also modify the surface of the substrate material to improve the surface energy, wettability, activation and other properties of the substrate. When the coated stent is implanted in the body, the drug will be slowly released to inhibit the growth of scar tissue around the stent and keep the coronary artery unobstructed

Petri dish

Currently, disposable plastic petri dishes are widely used in many fields such as biology, medicine, and chemical industry. Plastic products have become the preferred polymer material for experimental analysis in the biological and pharmaceutical industries due to their low price. The current disposable plastic culture dishes, such as polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), polycarbonate (PC), etc., are not hydrophilic on their surfaces, so it is very difficult to use them for the adherent culture of bacteria and cells.

Introduce reactive gas into the plasma surface treatment machine, and the reactive gas ionizes active groups in the plasma surface treatment equipment, including amino groups, carboxyl groups, etc. The active groups perform surface hydrophilic modification on the cell culture dish. Complex chemical reactions will occur on the surface of the activated material, and the introduction of new functional groups can significantly improve the surface activity of the cell culture dish and effectively improve the surface hydrophilicity of the cell culture dish.