A seaweed-based, fully biodegradable wound-healing bandage

Biodegradable Bandage Project Team Picture

Karina Akhmedova, Melanie Cheng, Theo Nguyen and Haoyang Guan

Community Partner: Miha Biotech
Degree:
- Bachelor of Applied Science
Program:
- Biomedical Engineering
Campus: Vancouver

Our project

Typical bandages fail both people and the planet. They cover a wound and rely on the body to heal itself, even though wounds heal best in a moist, breathable environment that also provides protection from external water and abrasion. Many also use strong adhesives that can damage newly regenerated skin when removed.

Additionally, conventional wound care products are made from non-biodegradable materials that pose significant environmental issues.

Most bandages are made of synthetic plastics that take centuries to decompose, contributing to medical waste and microplastic pollution.

Many also contain PFAS chemicals, which are associated with serious health risks, including cancer.

We worked with Miha Biotech, a Canadian startup with offices in Coquitlam and Montreal, to develop and validate a novel seaweed-based hydrogel for wound care. Our fully biodegradable bandage is strong enough to stay securely in place, provides a moist environment that promotes healing, and includes a protective barrier against contaminants.

Miha Biotech

Our design solution

Our solution is a three-layer bandage that optimizes moisture retention, absorption, flexibility, breathability, adhesion and biodegradability in one single dressing. The top layer is oxygen-permeable and protects against external moisture and friction. This top layer is made from chemically treated lab-grown bacterial cellulose.

The second layer provides the primary function of wound care, absorbing moisture from the wound and evaporating it at a balanced level. This layer is made from alginate that has been fortified with cellulose nanofibrils to improve its mechanical strength.

The bottom layer provides enough adhesion to withstand daily activity but is not so strong as to damage the skin when removed.

Biodegradable Bandage Project Capstone Poster.

The technical challenges we faced

Perhaps the first challenge we faced was defining our project scope. Our original project scope was very large, encompassing the whole process from developing the bandage to mass manufacturing. After consulting with our supervisor and client, we scaled back to focus on the mechanical aspects, including hydrogel tensile and compressive strength, flexibility, skin adherence, as well as durability.

While hydrogels offer properties that make them ideal for wound care, natural polymers can be quite fragile compared to synthetic polymers. This led us to add cellulose nanofibrils to provide structural reinforcement.

Testing the performance of each layer was also a challenge, given that many of the parameters we wanted to measure produce very small signals that are hard to detect.

This forced us to get creative, and we spent long hours in the lab figuring out how to build the setups that could reliably capture the data we needed.

Finally, ensuring our solution is completely biodegradable added another level of complexity. Many synthetic polymers do not fully degrade, depending on how they have been processed. We had to make do with a very small list of materials and use our knowledge of material science to engineer an effective hydrogel within these constraints.

How we validated our solution

We tested different parameters for each layer of our bandage. We used tensile and compressive tests to identify how much force the bandage can withstand and swelling tests to measure fluid absorption. Additionally, we tested moisture evaporation through the bandage to ensure its breathability, as well as the hydrophobic properties of the top layer. To test adherence, we wore prototypes and went about our day to see how long they could stick.

This was a very hands-on and iterative project. We developed many prototypes along the way and revised our approach based on test results. This required additional research to develop new strategies.

What we’re most proud of

We’re proud that we were able to pass the validation criteria we set at the beginning of the project.

Our bandage can successfully stretch 35% from its original length and it withstands 125 kilopascals of compressive force, which is twice as high as our first prototype.

We worked very well as a team, persevering through roadblocks and always finding a way forward. In addition to the strong spirit of collaboration within our team, we’d also like to acknowledge the assistance of the broader SBME community – we needed a lot more lab time than originally envisioned, and they were able to make that happen!