Polyethylene oxide additive-entrapped polyvinyl chloride as a new blood bag material

Until now, most widely used blood bag material has been a plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) because it has many desirable properties as a blood bag material. One of main concerns of using plasticized PVC as a blood bag material is the toxicity of the plasticizers that are leached out of the material. We tried to solve this problem by the addition of polyethylene oxide (PEO)-containing amphiphilic block copolymers as additives in the PVC. The PEO additives may play two roles: they can act as nontoxic plasticizers to PVC, and they can also act as blood-compatible surface modifiers. In this study, PEO additive-entrapped PVC films were prepared by the addition (up to 30 wt%) of PEO-alkyl carbon block copolymers or PEO-polypropylene oxide (PPO)-PEO triblock copolymers with different PEO chain lengths in the PVC. The prepared PEO additive-containing PVC films were characterized by the measurements of water contact angle, Fourier transform IR spectroscopy in the attenuated total reflectance mode, mechanical properties (tensile strength and elongation at break), water absorption, and stability of the PEO additives entrapped in the films. It was observed that the PEO additive-entrapped PVC films were flexible and transparent. It seems that the PEO additives are surface active, resulting in the considerable change of surface characteristics without a significant change of the mechanical properties of the films compared to the control PVC without any additives or a commercial blood bag. The adhesion of platelets on the film surfaces was significantly reduced by the addition of PEO additives. It seems that 10% addition of PEO additives is enough for the suppression of platelet adhesion on the surfaces. This study demonstrated that the use of PEO-containing block copolymers as additives to the PVC can be a feasible approach to prepare a new type of blood bag.