Biophysical Properties of Foamed and Solid Polymers Used in Orthotics and Prosthetics

Orthotic and prosthetic materials should have good mechanical and antibacterial properties. Therefore, in our study, we consider four common foamed closed-cells and two solid polymeric materials regarding their mechanical behaviour and tendency for bacterial adhesion. For all materials, the surface...

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Autores principales: Klemen Bohinc, Anže Abram, Anamarija Zore, Roman Štukelj, Ana Lenarčič, Rajko Vidrih, Andrijana Sever Škapin
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/48898fa837b745e7a18f1e11535eddfb
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Sumario:Orthotic and prosthetic materials should have good mechanical and antibacterial properties. Therefore, in our study, we consider four common foamed closed-cells and two solid polymeric materials regarding their mechanical behaviour and tendency for bacterial adhesion. For all materials, the surface roughness, hydrophobicity, zeta potential, tensile properties, hardness and CIE color parameters were measured. We found that foamed polymeric materials have higher roughness, higher hydrophobicity, lower Young’s modulus, lower maximum tensile strength and lower hardness than solid materials. Bacterial adhesion test measurements based on observation by scanning electron microscopy show much a lower adhesion extent of <i>S. aureus</i> on solid materials than on foamed materials. The measured biophysical properties could be the key data for users to select the optimal materials.