Super Critical CO2 Sterilisation

A process for cleaning donor soft tissue by removing contaminants by extraction using a fluid at supercritical temperature and pressures while preserving the integrity of the tissue.

A method is disclosed that produces allografts from matrices typically containing demineralized bone matrix (DBM) powder, demineralized bone matrix gel, demineralized bone matrix paste, bone cement, cancellous bone, or cortical bone and mixtures thereof. The matrices are sterilized utilizing supercritical CO2 in the presence of a sterilizing additive and an entrainer such as an alkaline earth metal compound, preferably CaCO3.

A gentle sterilisation process has been commercialised for the sterilisaition of advanced biomaterials. This article describes the technique and relevant applications.

The biocompatibility of two cyanoacrylate surgical glues (Glubran and Glubran 2), supplied by General Enterprise Marketing, Viareggio, Lucca, Italy, was tested through cytotoxicity and blood compatibility tests and the evaluation of antimicrobial activity. Cytotoxicity and blood compatibility tests were performed on the polymerized glues. Using the neutral red uptake test, the extracts from Glubran and Glubran 2 after polymerization were non-toxic to L929 cells only when diluted 1 : 10 with culture medium.

The concept of channels has been with us more than a century. For half a century, biologists have studied the remarkable workings of protein and peptide channels that permit various cations and small molecules to pass through the phospholipid bilayer membrane. During the past decade, attempts have been made by chemists and biochemists to examine the action of channel compounds from the chemical point of view and to model their function using synthetic structures.

Calix[4]arenes in their 1,3-alternate conformation are particularly convenient scaffolds for the construction of extended tubes. These molecules can act as polytopic cation receptors and have the fascinating property of allowing cation transport |("shuttling") along the tube by passing through the "π-basic tube" formed by the macrocyclic rings of the calixarene units. Although calix tubes can also influence anion transport, this does not appear to involve anion shuttling.

Microorganisms produce secondary metabolites like trichloroanisole (2,4,6-TCA), but also other unpleasant substances, which cause the typical “cork taint” in wine. This has led to serious problems for the cork industry in recent years and market share of cork stoppers decreased continuously. Conventional processes to reduce TCA content were only partly successful. Therefore a research program was started using supercritical CO2 in order to reduce the TCA content below the detectable limit.