Polymer Nanocomposite Materials with Enhanced Properties for Medical Tubing

描述（由申请人提供）：在许多医疗应用中，医疗器械所需的增强功能本质上是机械性的。最先进的、高度工程化的医疗设备使医生能够无创地进行以前只能通过手术进行的手术。使手术侵入性越来越小的推动已经对医疗管制造商施加了相当大的压力，以减小用于制造导管和限制输送球囊的医疗管的直径和壁厚。为了保持管道的物理和机械性能并避免破裂的风险，添加填料以增强制成管道的聚合物。传统的聚合物增强填料如玻璃、碳和其他纤维材料的粒度太大，不适合最现代的微型医疗设备所需的薄壁。该第I阶段SBIR提案描述了用于制造薄壁、小直径医用管的粘土状无机材料/聚合物纳米复合材料的制备。聚合物纳米复合材料理想地适用于该应用，并且仅百分之几（2至5 wt. %）以显著增强聚合物的性能。纳米复合材料开发中的最大挑战是将无机层状材料大量剥离到聚合物中，以获得具有连续性能的均匀材料。大多数纳米填料只是插入到聚合物中，而不是剥离。所提出的纳米材料理想地适合于在医学相关聚合物内剥离，并且将产生大于700 m2/g的颗粒表面积-该值大大超过当前最先进的插层纳米填料的表面积。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In many medical applications, the enhancements required for medical devices are mechanical in nature. State-of-the-art, highly engineered medical devices allow physicians to perform procedures noninvasively that were previously possible only through surgery. The push to make procedures less and less invasive has put considerable pressure on medical tubing manufacturers to reduce the diameter and wall thickness of medical tubing used to make catheters and stint delivery balloons. To maintain the physical and mechanical properties of the tubing and avoid the risk of rupture, fillers are added to reinforce the polymer from which the tubing is made. The particle size of traditional polymer-reinforcing fillers such as glass, carbon and other fibrous materials are far too large to be suitable for thin walls required for the most modern of miniature medical devices. This Phase I SBIR proposal describes the preparation of a clay-like inorganic material/ polymer nanocomposite to be used in the manufacture of thin-wall, small diameter medical tubing. Polymer nanocomposites are ideally suited for this application and only a few percent (2 to 5 wt. %) of the layered material is needed to considerably reinforce the properties of the polymer. The biggest challenge in the development of the nanocomposite materials is the extensive exfoliation of the inorganic layered material into the polymer to obtain a homogenous material with continuous properties. Most nanofillers are simply intercalated into the polymer, not exfoliated. The proposed nanomaterials are ideally suited for exfoliation within medically relevant polymers and will yield particle surface areas greater then 700 m2/g - a value which greatly exceeds the surface area of current state-of-the-art, intercalated nanofillers.