Technical documentation

During the resorbable-polymer-boom of the 1970s and 1980s, polycaprolactone (PCL) was used extensively in the biomaterials field and a number of drug-delivery devices. Its pop- ularity was soon superseded by faster resorbable polymers which had fewer perceived disadvantages associated with long-term degradation (up to 3–4 years) and intracellular resorption pathways; consequently, PCL was almost forgotten for most of two decades. Recently, a resurgence of interest has propelled PCL back into the biomaterials-arena.

Chlorine dioxide is generated from aqueous liquids container alkali metal or alkaline earth metal chlorites, and compounds which liberate chlorine in water. Dry, stable, solid compositions, in one or two parts, can be made from these and other ingredients.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC) Technology Testing and Evaluation Program (TTEP) helps to protect human health and the environment from adverse impacts of terrorist acts by carrying out performance tests on homeland security technologies. TTEP recently evaluated the performance of liquid and foam decontamination technologies under vendor-specified application conditions to decontaminate test coupons prepared from the materials listed below.

This study reports the effect of exposure to liquid carbon dioxide on the mechanical properties of selected medical polymers. The tensile strengths and moduli of fourteen polymers are reported. Materials were exposed to liquid CO2, or CO2 + trace amounts of aqueous H2O2, at 6.5 MPa and ambient temperature. Carbon dioxide uptake, swelling, and distortion were observed for the more amorphous polymers while polymers with higher crystallinity showed little effect from CO2 exposure.