Influence of structures on the mechanical and absorption properties of a textile pile debridement material and its biological evaluation

Abstract

Debridement describes the removal of necrotic tissue, cell debris and bacteria from a wound site. It aids the wound healing process and is considered as the cornerstone in proper wound management. The present work introduces a feasible approach to fabricate textile pile debridement materials with controllable structures. Six pile materials with variable pile densities and numbers of ground yarns were prepared based on the sliver knitting technology followed by back-coating, heat setting and shearing. Their surface morphology and chemistry were inspected by using SEM and FTIR. The mass per unit area and stitch density were measured to describe the basic geometric structures of the pile materials. The mechanical, liquid absorption and biological properties for the textile pile materials were assessed and compared with a commercial cotton gauze which is commonly used in clinical practice. The influence of structures on the mechanical, liquid absorption properties of the textile pile materials was also analyzed. Results show that pile density is the primary structure factor that affects the properties of the textile pile materials. Furthermore, all the six pile materials prepared in this study exhibited superior performance in both mechanical behaviors and liquid absorption capacity compared to the commercial gauze control. In addition, the results of biological evaluation indicate a satisfactory biocompatibility of the pile debridement material. Therefore the textile pile material offers a potential for wound debridement application.