Fabrication and characterization of silica aerogel as synthetic tibues for medical imaging phantoms

Abstract

Medical imaging plays an important role in the field of healthcare industry both in clinical settings and in research and development. It is used in prevention, early detection of disease, in choosing the optimal treatment, during surgical interventions and monitoring of the treatment effects. Despite much advancement in the last few decades, rapid change on its technology development and variety of imaging parameters that differ with the manufacturer restrict its further development. Imaging phantom is a calibrating medium that is scanned or imaged in the field of medical imaging to evaluate, analyze and tune the performance of various imaging devices. A phantom used to evaluate an imaging device should respond in a similar manner to how human tibue and organs would act in that specific imaging modality. There has been many research on the phantom materials; however, there has been no attempt to study on the material that mimics the structure of lung or fibrous tibue. So with the need for development of gel with such structure, we tried to mimic this structure with aerogel. Silica aerogels have unique properties that include low density (0.003g/cm) and mesoporosity (pore size 2-50nm), with a high thermal insulation value (0.005W/mK) and high surface area (500-1200m-2/g).] In this study, we crob-linked with di-isocyanate, which is a group in polyurethane to covalently bond the polymer to the surface of silica aerogel to enhance the mechanical properties. By formation of covalent bonds, the structure can be reinforced by widening the interparticle necks while minimally reducing porosity.