Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Bandages Made of Edible Starch Could Dissolve On Your Skin Once You're Healed

No need to peel them off Duct Tape Bandage There is a better way. Finely spun starch fibers woven into a bandage could dissolve on your skin and be absorbed by your body, eliminating the sting and hassle of ripping it off in one fast motion. Starch fibers could also be used to produce toilet paper, napkins and other biodegradable products, according to researchers at Penn State. Food science researchers dissolved starch into a fluid, then spun it into long strands that can be woven into mats, according to a university news release. Anyone who has ever dissolved starch in water knows it can have some awesome physical properties, but the resulting thick paste is not that useful beyond a fun experiment or maybe thickening some soup. To spin it into thin threads, the Penn State researchers added a solvent to help the starch break down more readily. The solvent allowed it to maintain its molecular structure, and the researchers used an electrospinning device to spin the material into long strands. The fibers could then be woven like any other fiber into a wide range of materials, from bandages to paper. If they're used as a bandage, the starch fibers could simply degrade into glucose after some time and be absorbed by the body, according to grad student Lingyan Kong, who led this research. No more ripping off a Band-Aid. The fibers could serve other functions where other polymers, like cellulose or petroleum-based plastics, are typically used. The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and now the Penn State team is applying for a patent.

20 comments:

  1. This is really interesting! I would love to have these but, it's going to take awhile to dissolve completely. I do not want a band-aid on me slowly faded away. I would rather rip it off. They could be very useful for younger children.

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  2. This is a very good idea! Because peeling off bandaids are very painful for anyone. But what if a person reacts to this idea differently than others. But i would use it, i hope there is more colors then just gray!

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  3. I think this is an interesting idea. It would be good for little kids because they hate ripping of band-aids. I personally would not want to use it because it would be there for longer than I want. It might stay on better than a regualr band-aid which would be very helpful.

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  4. I think this idea is interesting, but i wouldnt recommend this to any one. I agree this would be useful for litte kids though. You might as well just put on a regular bandaid.

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  5. This is a very interesting topic.But I personally would not want to use it because it would be there for longer than I want. It might stay on better than a regualr band-aid which would be very helpful.this would also be a good idea of younger child.

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  6. This is very interesting. It just shows how much technology has advanced. Personally I rather just take the little pain from a real band-aid than let an old one sit on my wound for longer than I want. I could see this being very useful thing for children or just people who rather not rip a band-aid off.

    -Signing off

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  7. This is very cool. This is one of many ways man and technology advanced. I would love to have this and witness it dissolve on a wound. This is a very useful invention that i thank will be a big hit.

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  8. Its really interesting how they make these things good for the environment. Its also cool that they can dissolve on a cut and be okay. This could be used by many people daily.

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  9. This is a very interesting idea. It would be good for certain people so they don't have to deal with the pain from taking the band-aid off but it would also bother a lot of people because it would stay there for a long time. This is something I could see a lot of people using. I'd like to see how it works and how long they last

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  10. I wouldn't want a Band-Aid to dissolve in my skin but this is pretty cool. I don't think this would actually work depending on the things you do on a daily basis. Even though this might dissolve in your skin, It can also help the enviroment

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  11. I think this is a very cool and interesting idea. I think it would be good for babies and small kids so they don't have to go through the pain of having a band-aid ripped off. I would still probably use a regular band-aid. I think it would be weird to have something dissolving on my skin.

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  12. I think this is a very good idea but I would not want to wait for a band aid to dissolve because it wouldn't be very fast. But like Brandi it would be very good for babies so they don't pick at the scabs or eat band aids.

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  13. I think this is a good idea because if you have a scar and you dont want band aid to hurt you as your trying to peel it off/ leaving a band aid mark. But also i wouldnt want to wait for it to dissolve either. maybe this would be a good idea?

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  14. Other than the fact this could reduce the sting of ripping off normal bandages, it could also reduce the amount of waste we use. But how long would it take to dissolve? Other than that, everything else kind of seems to be interesting.

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  15. I think this a good idea because a Dutch Tape bandage is a way better than having a Band - aid specially when its time to take it off and it hurts . Another reason why I think this cool because dissolve on your skin faster. but as Brandi said this a very good idea for babies and little kids too because when it time to come off it wouldn't hurt as bad.

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  16. these seem good but where does it go after it dissolves and is it harmful to your skin and can it cause any skin problems also its good cause it wont come of are anything

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  17. I think this is a great idea. When i get a cut and i put a band-aid on it i never look forward to riping it off. This can really be helpful to little kids because they are more sensitive to pain then us.

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  18. I think this is very intresting and a great idea. This would be useful for people who don't want to feel pain when taking off band-aids but it would also have to be patient because it would take time to dissolve. And it would be useful for little kids too. I personally wouldn't use this because I wouldnt like taking a long time.

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  19. As cool as this I kind if like sting of a Band-Aid. It tells kids that even healing is gonna hurt which I find is an important life lesson. Then again this might be my time away from any band-aids that are making me so naive. Still though this is a very cool product and I'd love to see them on the shelves real soon if possible. My only real concern is that they might deteriorate too soon or too late and this would either be bad because it wasn't done healing or bad because no one wants a Band-Aids on them longer than it has to be so they'll end up ripping it off anyways. Also could they make them stick better? That would be nice!

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  20. i think this is an intersecting thing. if we didnt have to rip off bandaids that would be amazing. but i think that the bandaid dissolving would take a long time and it would be easier to just rip it off and get it over with. i also think that i would look funny if we had a bandaid dissolving on our hand or something. i think that it might not heal alll the way and it just dissolve when ready.

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