Menstruation will also be messy and uncomfortable, continuously because of leaky pads, tampons and cups. A new alginate-based powder would possibly remedy that downside. The fabric, which solidifies menstrual blood by way of turning it right into a gel combination, may cut back leakage in duration merchandise with out compromising capability, researchers file July 10 in Subject.
“Our paper is an evidence of thought,” says Rogério Aparecido Bataglioli, a chemical engineer at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Sooner than getting used commercially, he says, the fabrics would want to be assessed for protection and scalability.
Maximum menstrual pads use cellulose-based fabrics to soak up duration blood. Even though they’re efficient, many of us who menstruate nonetheless battle with leakage and mess.
To resolve this downside, the crew grew to become to alginate, a naturally going on substance derived from algae and seaweed. After the researchers screened a big pool of attainable polysaccharides — lengthy chains of carbohydrate molecules — that will have blood-absorbing houses, alginate excelled at soaking up and gelling blood. It additionally has already been licensed by way of the Meals and Drug Management to be used in prescribed drugs, meals and clinical fabrics.
To additional strengthen the alginate’s absorption, the researchers added glycerol. They then examined the absorbency of those alginate-glycerol powders in opposition to business absorbents by way of sandwiching each and every between sheets of gauze. The crew dripped changed pig blood thru a fashion vagina to imitate menstruation earlier than acting a squeeze check at the blood-soaked fabrics. Even though each have been just right at soaking up the blood, when the simulated duration pads with business absorbent have been compressed, it was once “like squeezing a sponge,” says Bryan Hsu, a microbiologist at Virginia Tech. With the alginate subject matter, which gelled the blood, the pads leaked much less beneath force.
Pad exams
To evaluate the leakage of alginate-based menstrual pads, researchers wrapped the brand new subject matter in gauze and dripped pig blood on it. They then flippantly centrifuged the pads on height of neatly plates to imitate compression and acquire the leakage. They did the similar factor for 3 different eventualities: no added subject matter, business pad fillers and polyacrylate, the business gold-standard superabsorbent polymer. Click on in the course of the slideshow underneath to look how each and every fared.
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The crew started with a keep an eye on, dripping pig blood thru gauze pads without a added subject matter. The blood seeped all over the gauze (left). When centrifuged over the neatly plate (appropriate), plenty of blood leaked out. R.A. Bataglioli et al/Subject 2024 -
They then moved directly to business pad fillers, generally cellulose-based, and in a similar way amassed the post-centrifuge leakage in a neatly plate. The economic fillers leaked lower than simply gauze, however nonetheless leaked reasonably slightly. R.A. Bataglioli et al/Subject 2024 -
Researchers additionally examined polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer. When squeezed over the neatly plate, it leaked lower than both the gauze or the economic filler. R.A. Bataglioli et al/Subject 2024 -
After all, they carried out the similar exams with their very own alginate-glycerol powder components. Visually, the quantity of squeezed-out blood amassed within the neatly plate appears very similar to what pop out of the polyacrylate. However measuring the quantity of that blood published that the alginate-glycerol powder carried out the most efficient within the leak check out of all 4 fabrics. R.A. Bataglioli et al/Subject 2024
The crew additionally examined their new subject matter in menstrual cups. They packed the alginate-glycerol powder into a protracted and slender cotton sheath that was once then coiled round inside the cup. After the blood entered the menstrual cup and encountered the alginate, it gelled. Then, the blood might be got rid of along side the cotton tube — and a brand new one might be reinserted — with minimum liquid mess. In solidifying the menstrual blood right into a gel, Hsu says, the purpose is to make menstrual cup removing and cleansing more straightforward and tidier.
One limitation of the learn about, notes ob–gyn Abigail Liberty, is that the blood was once defibrinated pig blood, which doesn’t comprise fibrin, a protein keen on clotting. Even though she applauds the crew for the use of blood as an alternative of any other fashion fluid, menstrual blood is “other than blood that’s simply floating across the physique,” says Liberty, of Oregon Well being & Science College in Portland (SN: 4/16/24). “It’s secreted differently. It’s grown, it’s launched differently.”
Because of a scarcity of analysis on menstrual care and duration merchandise, Bataglioli and co-workers didn’t have a base of experimental tactics to attract from and adapt. As a substitute, they designed many in their strategies from scratch. “That’s a message to the medical group — there’s not anything available in the market,” says Zeinab Hosseinidoust, a biomedical engineer at McMaster College in Hamilton, Canada. “Much more necessary than the real analysis that was once performed is the message that this paintings sends.”