materialsscienceandengineering:
Cleaner, safer medical equipment with metallic glass coatings
Cells, like social teenagers, like to get together in groups. Some gatherings are harmless, but in medical settings the cells’ get-togethers are less like carefree soda-fuelled game nights, and more like hanging out in dark alleys committing acts of violence – if the alleys were catheters and syringes. When cells stick to medical devices they can cause potentially lethal problems like bacterial infections, cancer metastases and blood clots. To prevent cells of all kinds from hanging out in medical equipment, researchers at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology have recently developed a novel anti-adhesive coating that can be easily sputtered onto a variety of medical tools.
The coating is a zirconium-based thin film metallic glass (TFMG), said Jinn P. Chu, a professor at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Metallic glasses are metals that have a disordered atomic structure. They conduct electricity like crystalline metals, but, like glass, they soften and flow easily with heating, which makes them easy to process.
“Our coatings are used as functional materials, such as diffusion barriers in electronic devices and hydrophobic coatings,” Chu said. “The reason for using zirconium as the main component in TFMGs is mainly because of its good glass-forming ability and non-toxic properties.” Chu and his colleagues will speak about their research during the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 18-23 in San Jose, Calif.
This is awesome.
via Tumblr http://bit.ly/1PscVXr
No comments:
Post a Comment