The goal of the project is not just development of the method for surface cleaning of polymer medical instruments, but also development of procedure based on plasma treatment for minimizing protein adsorption to polymer surfaces and thus preventing excessive contamination of medical instruments. In this scientific paper we have studied the adsorption of different proteins to plasma treated polymer substrates. Polymer substrates were made either super-hydrophilic either super-hydrophobic by the use of appropriate gas. It was found that after certain conditions proteins are less bound to the polymer surface. This was explained by the right combination of the surface roughness and functionalization.
COBISS.SI-ID: 27136551
Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) can be used for measuring small amounts of adsorbed mass of impurities to the surface of quartz crystals. A major drawback of this method is that it requires time and therefore it is not usefuly from practical point of view. Therefore, a new method was introduced: optical emission spectroscopy (OES), which can give as a quick answer regarding the surface cleanliness. To test the usefulness of OES, we have deposited protein films on the surface of QCM crystals and exposed them to oxygen plasma to clean them. The cleaning process in-situ was monitored by OES) During cleaning a huge CO peak was observed in the OES spectrum. A huge drop in its intensity was observed when cleaning was accomplished and this was proved by QCM measurements as well. These results clearly indicate that OES method can allow simple real-time in-situ monitoring of removal of surface impurities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 27317031