Abstract

Blood-contacting cardiovascular stents often induce a secondary clotting event due to unrestricted enzymatic activities. The use of hemocompatible polyurethane coatings on these implantable devices is one of the most promising methods to reduce device rejection. In this study, four commercial polyurethane films of various thicknesses and compositions were evaluated for their anticoagulation properties. Results suggested that these films exhibited excellent thermal and physico-mechanical properties while capable of increasing contact time with blood plasma by over a thousand-fold as compared to a control surface. Due to the unknown structure and composition of these commercial films, polyurethane samples were synthesized from toluene diisocyanate as the hard segment and polyethylene glycol as the soft segment under various hard-to-soft segment ratios. The synthesized samples were cast into films for testing of their physico-mechanical properties. The effects of the hard-to-soft segment ratios on these properties and the synthesis process were evaluated in order to optimize them for use in anticoagulation coatings.

Date of publication

Spring 5-14-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/2590

Committee members

Shih-Feng Chou, Fredericka Brown, Nelson Fumo

Degree

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

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