Durable, flexible, superhydrophobic and blood-repelling surfaces for use in medical blood pumps.

Abstract

Extracorporeal blood pumps expose blood to high stresses and can cause blood damage or clotting, leading to serious complications and death. One possible solution is to use superhydrophobic (SHP) surfaces to reduce blood stresses via slip flow. However, current SHP surfaces have the durability problem, or are difficult to customize into complex 3D shapes. Here, we report a novel sand-casting technique to prepare a SHP and blood-repelling surface made of silicone and functionalized SiO2 nanoparticles, which is durable, flexible, and customizable into complex 3D shapes with relative ease. Compared to plain silicone surfaces, the casted surface can reduce the water drag force by up to 72%. The ..