Reduced Blood Coagulation on Roll-to-Roll, Shrink-Induced Superhydrophobic Plastics

The unique antiwetting properties of superhydrophobic (SH) surfaces prevent the adhesion of water and bodily fluids, including blood, urine, and saliva. While typical manufacturable approaches to create SH surfaces rely on chemical and structural modifications, such approaches are expensive, require postprocessing, and are often not biocompatible. By contrast, it is demonstrated that purely structural SH features are easily formed using high throughput roll‐to‐roll (R2R) manufacturing by shrinking a prestressed thermoplastic with a thin, stiff layer of silver and calcium. These features are subsequently embossed into any commercially available and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)‐approved plastic. The R2R SH surfaces have contact angles >150° and contact angle hysteresis 4200× reduction of blood residue area compared to the nonstructured controls of the same material. In addition, blood clotting is reduced >5× using whole blood directly from the patient. Furthermore, these surfaces can be easily configured into 3D shapes, as demonstrated with SH tubes. With the simple scale‐up production and the eliminated need for anticoagulants to prevent clotting, the proposed conformable SH surfaces can be impactful for a wide range of medical tools, including catheters and microfluidic channels. Superhydrophobic surfaces are achieved in a roll‐to‐roll platform by purely structural modification with no need for postprocessing. The biocompatible superhydrophobic hard plastic prevents water, blood, urine, and saliva from adhering to the surface, and blood slides off with no residue. Blood coagulation is significantly reduced on the superhydrophobic surface compared to flat, and superhydrophobic tubes are easily configured for medical applications.