Self-Lubricanting Slippery Surface with Wettability Gradients for Anti-Sticking of Electrosurgical Scalpel

Abstract

Soft tissue sticking on electrosurgical scalpels in minimally invasive surgery can increase the difficulty of operation and easily lead to medical malpractice. It is significant to develop new methods for anti-sticking of soft tissue on electrosurgical scalpels. Based on the characteristics of biomimetic ultra-slippery surface, a self-lubricating slippery surface with wettability gradients on electrosurgical scalpel was designed and fabricated. Non-uniformly distributed cylindrical micro pillars, which constitute the wettability gradients, were prepared by an electrolytic etching process and the theoretic of the spontaneous liquid spreading process was analyzed. The silicophilic property of wettability gradients surface was modified by octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembling coat with biocompatible liquid lubricant dimethyl silicone oil. The contact angle of gradient’s surface at different temperatures was measured. The transportation behaviors of both water and dimethyl silicone oil on the wettability gradient’s surface were investigated; the results illustrate that the wettability gradient’s slippery surface can successfully self-lubricate from regions with low pillar density to regions with high pillar density, ascribed to the unbalanced Young’s force. The anti-sticking capability of the electrosurgical scalpel with self-lubricating slippery surface was tested. Both the adhesion force and adhesion mass under different cycles were calculated. The results suggest that the as-prepared slippery surface has excellent anti-sticking ability associated with better durability.

Bioinspired Unidirectional Liquid Transport Micro-nano Structures: A Review

“…Lubricants such as silicon oil are usually covered onto the scalpels to prevent the tissue/scalpel adhesion; however, the surface could still dry out after several times of cutting due to the lack of lubricant transporting ability. Inspired from the long-term ultra-slippery liquid film on Nepenthes peristome formed by the 2D directional liquid transport, an electrosurgical scalpel has been designed and fabricated with the surface covered by gradient density micropillars along the center to edge direction [96] , which creates a gradient wettability that could continuously spread lubricant all over the scalpel surface (Fig. 14a).…”

“…Fig.14 (a) Electrosurgical scalpel surfaces with gradient density micropillars can continuously transport lubricants to tissue cutting interfaces. (b) Compared to smooth electrosurgical scalpels, the tissue stickiness can be greatly decreased on self-lubricated electrosurgical scalpels (reproduced from Ref [96]. with permission).…”

Physico-Chemical Approaches to Improve the Characteristics of Electrosurgical Instruments

“…При создании пропитанных жидкостью поверхностей на металле сначала, как и в подходе, описанном выше, формируются структуры, представляющие собой микроканалы, углубления или столбики, следующим шагом является модифицирование структурированной поверхности с целью повышения сродства к функциональному слою жидкости, а затем нанесение лубриканта. Как правило, в качестве лубриканта используют силиконовое масло, при этом для повышения сродства на поверхность металла наносят тонкий слой октодецилтрихлоросилана [44][45][46]. Модифицированные поверхности обладают меньшей степенью адгезии к ткани, при этом величина краевого угла смачивания достигает 104±0,21° [46].…”

Surface-Tension-Confined Channel with Biomimetic Microstructures for Unidirectional Liquid Spreading

“…Unidirectional liquid spreading has attracted worldwide attention due to its extensive application prospect in diverse fields, such as water harvesting [1][2][3], self-lubrication [4], liquid separation [5], and microfluidic operation [6][7][8]. However, the existing liquid manipulation methods induced by external driving fields are gradually unable to meet the requirements of green, efficient and portable microfluidic devices [9][10][11].…”