Rheological and Electrical Properties of Polymeric Nanoparticle Solutions and their Influence on RBC Suspensions

Rheological and electrical properties of polymeric nanoparticle solutions and their influence on the rheological and electrical properties of red blood cell (RBC) suspensions have been studied. Poly(acrylic acid) macromolecules of different architecture and molecular weight were used: (i) a new core-shell type star polymer whose interior forms hyperbranched polystyrene bearing arms of poly(acrylic acid) with molecular weight Mn = 56 920 Da and (ii) linear polyacrylic chains with average molecular weights Mn = 6000, 20000, and 225000 Da. The polymers dissolved in physiological solution with weight concentrations 1mg/ml and 0.2 mg/ml were used for the experiments. Under physiological conditions the star-shaped macromolecules present spherical nanoparticles while the linear poly(acrylic acid)s adopt an extended chain conformation close to rod-like particles. The apparent viscosity of the nanoparticle solutions and RBC suspensions in the presence and absence (the control) of nanoparticles were measured using a rotational viscometer Contraves Low Shear 30 (LS 30) at a steady flow at shear rates from 0.0237 to 94.5 s-1 and temperature 37o C. A method, based on the measurement of dielectric properties of dispersed systems in Couette viscometric blood flow was applied. A concurrent measurement system and data acquisition system implied into the Contraves LS 30 were used to quantify the electrical conductivity. The main advantage of this technique is that blood is subjected to a uniform shearing field in a Couette rheometric cell as well as the information about the mechanical and electrical properties of the fluid is obtained in parallel. The results show that rheological and electrical properties of the nanoparticle solutions and RBC suspensions, namely their electrical conductivity and apparent viscosity, are dependent on the shear rates, shape, concentration and molecular weight of the polymers.