Sticky situations: Assessing bonding and biocompatibility of medical devices

The wetting behaviors of surfaces, such as polymers, hydrogels, and metals, can be correlated to their bonding ability to adhesives, to other surfaces, and to their biocompatibility.

In academia and industry, one widely used method to determine how a liquid wets or adheres to a surface is the sessile drop technique. For instance, the hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity of tooth implant materials has been shown to correlate to their degree of contact with their physiological surroundings, and this method can be used to probe such surface property.

The sessile drop method may also provide information on surface free energy — an important parameter for the surface treatment of material used in medical devices. Medical device developers can use this information to optimize surface treatment and bonding of adhesives on surfaces.

What you can expect

• Understand wetting and how it relates to adhesion
• Learn how hydrophobicity can indicate biocompatibility
• Discover the sessile drop method

Webinar on demand

If you register, you can access the recorded version of this webinar immediately.

Topics

• Which contact-angle measuring technique should be used to observe the wetting behavior of your medical device surface?
• How can surface free energy information from contact angles be used to optimize surface treatment of polymer surfaces used for medical devices?
• Is the information on the work of adhesion and interfacial tension between substrate and liquid effective in optimizing adhesion?