Credit: Li Z et al. Nature Communications.

When a nasty pimple got infected on my right thigh, I had to go to the doctor every morning for a week to sanitize the wound and change bandages. Every time the doctor pilled off the gauze, I would hold my breath in expectation of the needle-like painful sensation. Fortunately, for all of us, this experience might become a thing of the past.

Dimos Poulikakos, the head of the Energy Science Center (ESC) at ETH University in Zurich, Switzerland, was experimenting with various superhydrophobic materials — which are extremely effective repelling liquids — in order to design a blood-repelling coating for heart-lung machines and other medical devices.

However, completely by accident, Poulikakos and colleagues at ETH and the National University of Singapore came across a totally new practical application. One of the materials they toyed with repelled blood as intended, but also promoted clotting.

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“We did not actually plan this, but that is just how science works sometimes: you start researching one thing and end up somewhere else,” Poulikakos said in a statement.

These dual-properties make the material unsuitable for blood pumps on other sensitive medical devices but make it ideal as a bandage that can be removed easily without causing secondary bleeding.

The coated gauze repels blood. Credit: Nature Communications.

In animal tests on rats, the researchers showed that a conventional cotton gauze coated with the new material — a mix of silicone and carbon nanofibers — not only triggered blood clotting but also had antibacterial properties. Due to the liquid repelling properties, bacteria have trouble adhering to the surface of a wound.

“With the new superhydrophobic material, we can avoid reopening the wound when changing the bandage,” Athanasios Milionis, a postdoctoral researcher in Poulikakos’s group, said in a statement. “Reopening wounds is a major problem,” he continues, “primarily because of the risk of infection, including from dangerous hospital germs – a risk that is especially high when changing bandages.”

In the future, bandages coated with the blood-repelling material could find their way in emergency rooms but also household use as plasters.

The findings were reported in the journal Nature Communications.