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Design and fabrication of a blood penetration resistance tester

(Sponsored by Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi)

Investigators: Dr. K. P. Chellamani, Mr. D. Veerasubramanian and Mr. R. S. Vignesh Balaji

Summary

In recent times, the market demand for medical textiles has been increasing substantially. As infectious diseases like AIDS, hepatitis, SARS etc have reached alarming levels, the knowledge and means of protection from these diseases need to be improved. In an operation theatre, the body of the person to be operated works as a source of infection.  Unless the doctors and other co-workers are protected from outside, they might be infected as well. Therefore, these personnel use a protective garment called surgical gown to safeguard them from undesirable infection.  Indigenous instruments for assessing the barrier properties of surgical apparels are not available at present.  In view of the non-availability of indigenous instruments for assessing the barrier properties of the treated fabrics, these fabrics are at present mostly imported together with the relevant test certificates. Due to this, the cost of the treated fabrics (treated against the penetration of blood and other body fluids) is rather high and this stands in the way of majority of the Indian hospitals going for treated surgical apparels. Hence, SITRA has conducted a project to design and fabricate an instrument to assess the blood penetration resistance of operation theatre apparels.

Major accomplishments 

SITRA’s Blood Penetration Resistance Tester

• SITRA has designed and fabricated an instrument to assess the resistance of materials used in the protective clothing for penetration by blood and blood - borne pathogens. The traces of blood present in the test specimen are detected using capacitive type sensors.
• Test procedure for quality evaluation of surgical apparels made out of woven and non-woven fabrics has been standardized.
• The instrument has been calibrated against the test results obtained from an accredited foreign laboratory equipment for different types of operation theatre apparels.

Research reports / Publications:Available at SITRA

• Patent application filed with patent office, Chennai; Patent application number: 4988/CHE/2012