Thermo-physical properties of synthetic mucus for the study of airway clearance

In this article, dynamic viscosity, surface tension, density, heat capacity and thermal conductivity, of a bronchial mucus simulant proposed by Zahm et al., Eur Respir J 1991; 4: 311–315 were experiementally determined. This simulant is mainly composed of a galactomannan gum and a scleroglucan. It was shown that thermophysical properties of synthetic mucus are dependant of scleroglucan concentrations. More importantly and for some scleroglucan concentrations, the syntetic mucus, exhibits, somehow, comparable thermophysical properties to real bronchial mucus. An insight on the microstructure of this simulant is proposed and the different properties enounced previously have been measured for various scleroglucan concentrations and over a certain range of operating temperatures. This synthetic mucus is found to mimic well the rheological behavior and the surface tension of real mucus for different pathologies. Density and thermal properties have been measured for the first time.

Olivier Lafforgue, N. Bouguerra, Sebastien Poncet, Isabelle Seyssiecq, Julien Favier, et al.. Thermo-physical properties of synthetic mucus for the study of airway clearance. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2017, 105 (11), pp.3025-3033 ⟨10.1002/jbm.a.36161⟩. ⟨hal-01596484⟩

Journal: Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A

Date de publication: 14-08-2017

Auteurs:
  • Olivier Lafforgue
  • N. Bouguerra
  • Sebastien Poncet
  • Isabelle Seyssiecq
  • Julien Favier
  • S. Elkoun

Digital object identifier (doi): http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.36161


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