Bandages adhere better with ultrasound and bubbles

This breakthrough from McGill University plus collaborators at the University of British Columbia and ETH Zurich in Switzerland could lead to new advances in medical adhesives, particularly in cases where adhesives are difficult to apply such as on wet skin.

“Bandages, glues, and stickers are common bioadhesives that are used at home or in clinics. However, they don’t usually adhere well on wet skin. It’s also challenging to control where they are applied and the strength and duration of the formed adhesion,” said McGill University Professor Jianyu Li, who led the research team of engineers, physicists, chemists, and clinicians.

“We were surprised to find that by simply playing around with ultrasonic intensity, we can control very precisely the stickiness of adhesive bandages on many tissues,” said lead author Zhenwei Ma, a former student of Professor Li and now a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia.

In collaboration with physicists Professor Outi Supponen and Claire Bourquard from the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at ETH Zurich, the team experimented with ultrasound induced microbubbles to make adhesives stickier.