Mechanics of Wax-based Gels with varying Polymer Concentration: An Overview
Author:
Anthony Orlando ’24
Co-Authors:
Faculty Mentor(s):
Kenneth Mineart, Chemical Engineering
Funding Source:
Chemical Engineering Department
Abstract
Wax-based polymer gels have the potential to vastly improve the shelf life of transdermal drug patches. It can be reasoned, and addressed with future testing, that diffusivity of wax-based gels in the solid wax phase is relatively negligible and only becomes significant once the material transitions to the gel phase. The gel phase of this type of material is comparable to amorphous mineral oil-based gels. If the melting point of the wax-based gels is constrained between human body temperature and room temperature, diffusion of the payload in gels can be controlled to only occur when the patch is in contact with the human skin. Our first step in studying wax-based polymer gels is their mechanical behavior. Testing of both the solid wax and gel phases of the wax-based gels will provide foundational physical properties of the gels and aid in moving them towards application in the medical industry.