BIOMATERIAL ASSIGNMENT

PAPER REVIEW

SEPTIANI DITA INDAHSARI (07311840000018)

DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY
SEPULUH NOPEMBER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
PAPER REVIEW
“ Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) : Properties and Applications ”

INTRODUCTION
Before we proceed with this section about Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), I will
give a little information about biomaterial, because Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) itself
is a part of a class in materials. Material is a substance or mixture of substances that
constitute an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter.
Materials can be classified based on their physical and chemical properties, or on their
geological origin or biological function. Materials science is the study of materials and
their applications (Wikipedia, 2019). A biomaterial can be defined as any material used
to make devices to replace a part or a function of the body in a safe, reliable, economic,
and physiologically acceptable manner. variety of devices and materials is used in the
treatment of disease or injury. Commonplace examples include sutures, tooth fillings,
needles, catheters, bone plates, etc. A biomaterial is a synthetic material used to replace
part of a living system or to function in intimate contact with living tissue. There are four
class materials used in the body polymers, metals, ceramics, and composites.
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) include in polymers class [8].

If we substitute the hydrogen atoms in polyethylene with fluorine (F), the resulting
material is well known as Teflon® for commercial and industrial
(Polytetrafluoroethylene). Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a fluoropolymer, classified
among thermoplastics. It was discovered since 1941 by Dr. Roy J. Plunkett at the DuPont
industry. PTFE is polymerized from the monomer tetrafluoroethylene (TFE). It possesses
the C-F bond in the PTFE formulation, having the molecular formula [(CF2-CF2) n].
PTFE is a high molecular weight compound because of the strongly bonded fluorine
atoms and exhibits semi-crystalline nature. The strong C-F bond does not lead PTFE to
react with any other compounds. The carbon backbone is tightly bonded to the fluorine
atom could be the reason. Hence, interfacing PTFE in the micro to macro components
require improvement of its property and performance-related studies to overcome the
technical hindrance [3,8].

PROPERTIES
PTFE is ideal for performance due to unique properties. The properties of PTFE
widely spread in all the branches and being used for a variety of applications.

Figure 1. Molecular Structure of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE )

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PTFE has six properties consisting of physical, chemical, mechanical, thermal, electrical,
and optical properties. But here I will write about mechanical properties only. The
mechanical property of PTFE deals with the study of tensile strength, stress and strain,
ductility, hardness, and molding ability. PTFE is ductile in nature and obviously remains
low in mechanical phase when compared to other polymers but PTFE has a good
advantage in constructing mechanical device parts by loading filler components.
Generally, the unfilled PTFE exhibits very poor flexural properties. An improvement over
mechanical property has been studied in detail for the composite material Polyamide6
(PA6)/PTFE. Under stress, the deformation of PTFE occurs and improves the flexural
toughness due to the absorption of energy. Results showed that the 30% PA6-reinforced
PTFE composites have a significant improvement in mechanical performance.
PTFE filled with expanded graphite nanoparticles (Nano-EG). It is noteworthy
that the composites reinforced with nanomaterials have a remarkable improvement in
strength and hardness in comparison with the pure PTFE. Notably, the composite added
with nano-Al2O3 showed higher tensile strength and the composite added with nano-SiO2
showed high elastic modulus. Creep test is important for engineering polymers. Lower
creep rate increases the ability of the material to withstand under harsh physical
conditions. PTFE exhibits high creep and causes hindrance to utilizing in applications.
The results clearly indicate that the addition of nano-SiO2 considerably improves the
tensile strength and hardness and in particular, it reduces the creep strain and creeps rate.
The reinforcement of short carbon fibers and short glass fibers significantly improved the
tensile strength of 18 wt.% and 20 wt.% of the filler ratio to the PTFE which was reported
by the authors [8].
For additional, Polymeric PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) surfaces show
hydrophobic and oleo phobic characteristics. Water contact angles on smooth PTFE are
found between 98-112° and are widely used in kitchenware and in low-friction
engineering components, with good mechanical properties. The hydrophobic properties
of PTFE are caused by the fluorination of the carbon bonds. Several different approaches
were tried successfully to change PTFE surfaces towards super hydrophobic behavior.
PTFE by itself is chemically inert and the super hydrophobic electrospray coating will
resist environmental exposure, being friendly to the environment. Further processing of
this inert coating for device applications is clearly possible, especially considering the
fairly low heat treatment temperatures [2].
APPLICATION
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) has been conferred as the most consumed
fluoropolymer across the world. Since the discovery of PTFE, the material is flourishing
in all the way and the applications are turned-out to be countless. Over the years, the
growth of PTFE in domestic, industrial and defense applications is consistently increasing
with no barriers. The range of applications differs when PTFE was cast as pure or
composite based material. The applications of PTFE in various fields are automotive
industries, petrochemical and power industries, aerospace industries, food processing
industries, chemical industries, biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, electrical
applications, and defense applications [8].

PTFE has been used to build biomedical and pharmaceutical applications due to
its non-reactive functionality with organic substances. PTFE supplies excellent

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characteristics in medical instrumentation and in manufacturing implants. Biliary metal
stents covered by expanded PTFE (e-PTFE) were developed to controlled tumor ingrowth
and it shows less tumor ingrowth when compared to polyurethane (PU). In clinical
applications, e-PTFE has been preferred in soft tissue engineering for its bio integrity.
Mechanical characteristics play a major role in fixation of implants. Building implants
with medical grade e-PTFE have some physical parameters [8].

There are many applications from PTFE. One of them is that it has long been
known that PTFE is used as a graft material like arterial grafts [4-5], artery
polytetrafluoroethylene bypass [1,9-10]. In the late 1950s, the researchers began to realize
their first big mistake, choosing nylon as the fiber of choice for arterial grafts. Harrison1
first sounded the alarm with studies in animals which showed that nylon lost 85% of its
tensile strength after 100 days of implantation. Clinical experience confirms this research
in a few years, and true aneurysms develop from many of these nylon grafts, which
require removal. Harrison's work, confirmed in their laboratory, shows that Teflon and
Dacron lose less traction nylon strength. In fact, Teflon seems to gain strength after
implantation. For this reason, they chose Teflon as the fiber of choice [4]. Healing of
Polytetrafluoroethylene Arterial Grafts is Influenced by Graft Porosity. From the author
experience, in low porosity grafts (10 and 30 𝜇m internodal distances) endothelial
coverage of the luminal surface was incomplete and, along with intimal thickening, was
limited to graft near the anastomosis. In high porosity grafts (60 and 90 𝜇m internodal
distances) luminal endothelial coverage was complete, and intimal thickening was
uniformly distributed throughout the graft. The highest porosity graft studied (90 𝜇m)
developed areas of focal loss of endothelial cells at late time periods. In this limited series
there does appear to be an optimal porosity for polytetrafluoroethylene grafts near 60 𝜇m
[5].
Next application is Polytetrafluoroethylene Graft Survival in Hemodialysis. The
standard type of arteriovenous fistula as described by Brescia and colleagues is the
preferred choice for primary vascular access in patients with chronic renal failure in need
of hemodialysis because of high patency, 90% at two years, and low complication rates.
The creation of these fistulas is not always possible because of a lack of adequate veins,
obesity, iatrogenic attrition of vessels, or previous failed vascular access. In these persons,
alternative methods are required. Different techniques that have been used include
autogenous saphenous veins, bovine, and Dacron® velour grafts. Recently, the expanded
PTFE graft has gained wide acceptance because of its availability, good handling
characteristics, low thrombogenicity, and good incorporation to host tissues [6].

Regeneration of vascular tissues has drawn a high interest in vascular medical

society. Among the many materials, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is extensively
utilized in synthetic vascular surgery and medical devices because of its chemical and
mechanical stability. Even though a porous, or expanded form of PTFE (ePTFE) is
usually employed in medical devices, clinical applications in small diameter vascular
grafts were limited due to lack of its cell adhesion properties. To solve the problem,
modification of the entire surface of PTFE with porous structure and change of its surface
chemical structure for improving cellular interaction. A further modification was
performed with an atmospheric pressure plasma jet as a second step [7].

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 Besides applications in biomedical, PTFE can also be used in the application of
grafted polytetrafluoroethylene fiber as a cation exchanger for adsorption of heavy
metals. A novel type of weakly acidic cation exchange fiber has been prepared by 60 Co
irradiation grafting with acrylic acid onto the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) fiber. The
exchange capacity of the grafted fiber is 3.06 mmol/g. The pH titration curve of the
grafted fiber showed there is a sudden jump when pH is around 6–10, and the acidity of
the grafted fiber is stronger than the commercial weakly acidic exchange resin (D-152).
For most of the adsorbed metals, the grafted fiber could be regenerated completely with
almost equimolar diluted hydrochloric acid. It was hoped the grafted PTFE fiber could be
got more and more practical use is the future properties for La3+, Pb2+and Cu2+ indicated
that the grafted PTFE could be used to remove or enrich [11].

The current status of PTFE is always a step ahead of all other competing polymers.
PTFE is wisely modified with fillers to improve its performance to the desired level. The
applications of PTFE include piston seal rings in pumps dedicated for fuel extraction
plants, non-stick coatings for specialized domestic and industrial articles, gaskets and
valves in food processing industries, dielectric and insulating materials in microwave
engineering and much more. PTFE delivered only limited applications in its virgin type
but the composite forms of PTFE made by filling micro and nano entities improved the
performance and properties to the desired level. The selection of filler to incorporate in
PTFE is crucial to render a particular property. Hence, the property of PTFE in composite
forms also relies on the property of the chosen filler. The reinforcement may cause
instability of the PTFE composite due to the poor interaction between the polymer chain
and the filler component. So, the enhancement of stability by functionalizing the fillers
through the grafting, compatibilization and surface modification techniques to be
achieved for exploring the possibilities of new PTFE-based composites. From small
domestic range to large industrial purposes, PTFE is an inevitable fluoroplastic material
that is precisely utilized from time to time in all technological innovations.

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REFERENCES
[1] Albers, M., Battistella, V. M., & Romiti, M. (2003). Meta-Analysis of
Polytetrafluoroethylene Bypass Grafts to Infrapopliteal Arteries. J Vasc Surg,
1263-1269.
[2] Burkarter, E., Saul, C. K., & Thomazi, F. (2007). Superhydrophobic Electrosprayed
PTFE. Surface & Coatings Technology 202, 194-198.
[3] Dhanumalayan, E., & Joshi, G. M. (2018). Performance properties and applications
of polytetrafluoroethylene. Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials (2018),
247-268.
[4] Edwards, W. S. (1978). Arterial Grafts. Arch Surg - Vol 113, 1225-1233.
[5] Golden, M. A., Hanson, S. R., & Kirkman, T. R. (1990). Healing of
Polytetrafluoroethylene Arterial Grafts is Influenced by Graft Porosity. J VAs¢
SuRG, 838-845.
[6] Munda, R., First, M. R., & Alexander, J. W. (1983). Polytetrafluoroethylene Graft
Survival in Haemodialysis. JAMA, 219-222.
[7] Noh, J. H., Baik, H. K., Noh, I., Park, J.-C., & Lee, I.-S. (2007). Surface Modification
of Polytetrafluoroethylene Using Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet for Medical
Application. Surface & Coatings Technology 201, 5097-5101.
[8] Park, J., & Lakes, R. S. (2007). BIOMATERIALS An Introduction Third Edition. New
York: Springer.
[9] Stonebridge, P. A., Prescott, R. J., & Ruckley, C. V. (1997). Randomized Trial
Comparing Infrainguinal Polytetrafluoroethylene Bypass Grafting with and
without Vein Interposition Cuff at the Distal Anastomosis. J Vasc Surg, 543-550.
[10] Taylor, R. S., Loh, A., & McFarland, R. J. (1992). Improved Technique for
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Vein Patches. Br. J. Surg. Vol. 79, 348-354.
[11] Wei, J. F., Wang, Z. P., & Zhang, J. (2005). The preparation and the application of
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