title: Transforming plastic surfaces with electrophilic backbones from hydrophobic to hydrophilic.
abstract: We demonstrate a simple nonaqueous reaction scheme for transforming the surface of plastics from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. The chemical modification is achieved by base-catalyzed trans-esterification with polyols. It is permanent, does not release contaminants, and causes no optical or mechanical distortion of the plastic. We present contact angle measurements to show successful modification of several types of plastics including poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and polycarbonate (PC). Its applicability to blood analysis is explored using chemically modified PET blood collection tubes and found to be quite satisfactory. We expect this approach will reduce the cost of manufacturing plastic devices with optimized wettability and can be generalized to other types of plastic materials having an electrophilic linkage as its backbone.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and ‡Department of Pathology, Stanford University , Stanford, California 94305, United States.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Raffick A R
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Bowen
authors.forename: Richard N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Zare
mesh_terms: D001774:Blood Chemical Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D006801:Humans; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D010969:Plastics / Q000737:chemistry*; D013499:Surface Properties; D017155:Wettability
chemical_list: D010969:Plastics
keywords: PET; blood collection devices; contact angle; glycolysis; surface modification; wettability