In vitro biocompatibility study of microwave absorbing conducting polymer blend films for biomedical applications

In the present communication, microwave absorbing property in the frequency range of 12.4–18 GHz and in vitro biocompatibility studies of light weight, flexible, biocompatible, and environment friendly polymer blend films of polyvinylchloride (PVC)-polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) (taken in ratio 1:1) and doped with various percentage weight concentration of polypyrrole (PPy) are reported. Addition of PPy in the PVC-PVP matrix exhibited a synergetic effect in improving microwave absorbing property. PVC-PVP blend film with 40 and 50% concentrations of PPy were seen to absorb microwaves of the order of 28–50 dB in ku band of microwave region indicating that this composition can suitably find application as microwave absorbing material. In vitro biocompatibility skin irritation study of PVC-PVP (taken in ratio 1:1) with 50% weight concentration of PPy indicated that the prepared film did not have any irritation upon administration and hence is safe for topical application. Moreover, the blood compatibility study of this film exhibited compatibility with blood and can safely be used in any blood contacting mask/device. Hence, this biocompatible film can potentially be used as microwave absorbing material for masking some parts of human body or can be interfaced to biological systems or devices.

The Preparation of FeCo/ZnO Composites and Enhancement of Microwave Absorbing Property by Two-Step Method

In this paper, the flower-like FeCo/ZnO composites were successfully firstly prepared by a two-step method, and their microstructures and microwave absorbing properties were characterized. The results show that with an increase of temperature, the content of ZnO loaded on a FeCo/ZnO composite surface was increased. The optimal reflection loss (RL) value can be reached around −53.81 dB at 9.8 GHz, which is obviously superior to results of previous studies and reports, and its effective bandwidth (RL < −10 dB) is 3.8 GHz in the frequency range of 8.7–11.8 GHz with a matching thickness of 1.9 mm. We considered that a large number of lamellar and rod-like ZnO loaded on nano-FeCo single-phase solid solution by two-step method can significantly improve the electromagnetic wave absorption properties.