Mark Banister

IPMC-assisted miniature disposable infusion pumps with embedded computer control

For military applications, the availability of safe, disposable, and robust infusion pumps for intravenous fluid and drug delivery would provide a significant improvement in combat healthcare. To meet these needs, we have developed a miniature infusion prototype pump for safe and accurate fluid and drug delivery that is programmable, lightweight, and disposable. In this paper we present techniques regarding inter-digitated IPMCs and a scaleable IPMC that exhibits significantly improved force performance over the conventional IPMCs. The results of this project will be a low cost accurate infusion device that can be scaled from a disposable small volume liquid drug delivery patch to disposable large volume fluid resuscitation infusion pumps for trauma victims in both the government and private sectors of the health industry.

Molecular engineering of polymer actuators for biomedical and industrial use

Five key materials engineering components and how each component impacted the working performance of a polymer actuator material are investigated. In our research we investigated the change of actuation performance that occurred with each change we made to the material. We investigated polymer crosslink density, polymer chain length, polymer gelation, type and density of reactive units, as well as the addition of binders to the polymer matrix. All five play a significant role and need to be addressed at the molecular level to optimize a polymer gel for use as a practical actuator material for biomedical and industrial use.

Study of a smart polymer medical device, product development obstacles and innovative solutions

The concept is simple, within the pump a pH responsive polymer actuator swells in volume under electrically controlled stimulus. As the actuator swells it presses against a drug reservoir, as the reservoir collapses the drug is metered out to the patient. From concept to finished product, engineering this smart system entailed integration across multiple fields of science and engineering. Materials science, nanotechnology, polymer chemistry, organic chemistry, electrochemistry, molecular engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering all played a part in solutions to multiple technical hurdles. Some of these hurdles where overcome by tried and true materials and component engineering, others where resolved by some very creative out of the box thinking and tinkering. This paper, hopefully, will serve to encourage others to venture into unfamiliar territory as we did, in order to overcome technical obstacles and successfully develop a low cost smart medical device that can truly change a patients life.

EAP hydrogels for pulse-actuated cell system (PACS) architectures

Electroactuated polymer (EAP) hydrogels based on JEFFAMINE® T-403 and ethylene glycol glycidyl ether (EGDGE) are used in an infusion pump based on the proprietary Pulse Actuated Cell System (PACS) architecture in development at Medipacs LLC. We report here significant progress in optimizing the formulation of the EAP hydrogels to dramatically increase hydrolytic stability and reproducibility of actuation response. By adjusting the mole fraction of reactive components of the formulation and substituting higher molecular weight monomers, we eliminated a large degree of the hydrolytic instability of the hydrogels, decreased the brittleness of the gel, and increased the equilibrium swelling ratio. The combination of these two modifications to the formulation resulted in hydrogels that exhibited reproducible swelling and deswelling in response to pH for a total period of 10-15 hours.