Covestro's PC, TPU find use in wearable, connected medical devices

Anaheim, Calif. — Connectivity and technology took center stage at MD&M West as manufacturers seek out innovative materials for wearable medical devices and flexible printed electronics.

Covestro highlighted a polycarbonate material used in InfoBionic.Ai's MoMe Advanced Remote Cardiology (ARC) system to detect cardiac arrhythmias. The FDA-approved third generation of the system features Covestro's Makrolon 2458 polycarbonate, both in the opaque, white, modular monitoring pod, and a clear plastic connector component.

"You can have it applied when you're in the hospital, and then you can take it home with you," Emily Shaffer, health care market manager at Covestro, told Plastics News at MD&M in Anaheim. "This little sensor pod connects to your phone, and using AI, it can analyze if you're having any type of cardiac events and alert your doctor in almost real time.

"The goal would be to either decrease the time of your stay in the hospital or completely prevent you from having to go into the hospital," Shaffer said.

The polycarbonate material needed to be chemically resistant to cleansers, lotions and sunscreens and durable against breaks if the product were to fall, she said.

"[It] also offered compatibility with various secondary manufacturing processes, such as insert molding, overmolding and laser marking, making it an ideal choice for this application," Shaffer said in a news release.

Compatibility with both laser marking and overmolding eliminated the need for labels and integrating sealing and strain relief features, the release said.

The "convergence of health care and electronics" has been a major trend in the industry for years, Shaffer said. "But it continues to grow. ... We're seeing more companies from the typical electronic side [of the industry] pairing with more traditional health care OEMs and working to merge technologies."

Home health connectivity is a big part of that trend, she added, such as continuous glucose monitors for diabetes that connect patients to their own health data, "taking that traditional medical device and making it more patient-centric and consumer-friendly."

In addition, Covestro showcased its thermoplastic polyurethane films for stretchable, printed electronics, which can also be used in wearable devices as well as performance textiles. The new technology allows for circuits to be printed on a variety of surfaces from traditional rigid and nonstretchable substrates to stretchable and flexible substrates. Covestro's Platilon TPU film is intended for applications such as athletic footwear, pulse oximeters and other biometric sensors that demand repeated compression, flexing and resistance to creasing.

Covestro hopes to replace more common PET films with TPU where device makers and printed electronics might "need more flexibility from the material," Kidd Wang, medical segment manager at Covestro, told PN at MD&M. The TPU is compatible with conductive silver ink used in print- ed electronics. It is also soft to the touch "because TPU film just has really good breathability, meaning potentially it offers the patient longer wearing time of the device on the skin," Wang said. The films can also be used in wound care applications like dressings, cannulae and surgical incision films. Covestro offers monolayer and multilayer films that can alter color of the bandage to customize it to certain skin tone colors.