A new algae-based menstrual pad could stop leaks

Menstruation tin beryllium messy and uncomfortable, often owed to leaky pads, tampons and cups. A new alginate-based powder whitethorn lick that problem. The material, which solidifies menstrual humor by turning it into a gel mixture, could trim leakage successful play products without compromising capacity, researchers study July 10 successful Matter.

“Our insubstantial is simply a impervious of concept,” says Rogério Aparecido Bataglioli, a chemic technologist astatine Virginia Tech successful Blacksburg. Before being utilized commercially, he says, nan materials would request to beryllium assessed for information and scalability.

Most menstrual pads usage cellulose-based materials to sorb play blood. Though they are effective, galore group who menstruate still struggle pinch leakage and mess.

To lick this problem, nan squad turned to alginate, a people occurring constituent derived from algae and seaweed. After nan researchers screened a ample excavation of imaginable polysaccharides — agelong chains of carbohydrate molecules — that could person blood-absorbing properties, alginate excelled astatine absorbing and gelling blood. It besides has already been approved by nan Food and Drug Administration for usage successful pharmaceuticals, nutrient and aesculapian materials.

To further amended nan alginate’s absorption, nan researchers added glycerol. They past tested nan absorbency of these alginate-glycerol powders against commercialized absorbents by sandwiching each betwixt sheets of gauze. The squad dripped modified pig humor done a exemplary pussy to mimic menstruation earlier performing a compression trial connected nan blood-soaked materials. Though some were bully astatine absorbing nan blood, erstwhile nan simulated play pads pinch commercialized absorbent were compressed, it was “like squeezing a sponge,” says Bryan Hsu, a microbiologist astatine Virginia Tech. With nan alginate material, which gelled nan blood, nan pads leaked little nether pressure.

The squad besides tested their caller worldly successful menstrual cups. They packed nan alginate-glycerol powder into a agelong and constrictive fabric sheath that was past coiled astir wrong of nan cup. After nan humor entered nan menstrual cup and encountered nan alginate, it gelled. Then, nan humor could beryllium removed on pinch nan fabric conduit — and a caller 1 could beryllium reinserted — pinch minimal liquid mess. In solidifying nan menstrual humor into a gel, Hsu says, nan extremity is to make menstrual cup removal and cleaning easier and tidier.

One limitation of nan study, notes ob–gyn Abigail Liberty, is that nan humor was defibrinated pig blood, which does not incorporate fibrin, a macromolecule progressive successful clotting. Though she applauds nan squad for utilizing humor alternatively of different exemplary fluid, menstrual blood is “different than humor that’s conscionable floating astir nan body,” says Liberty, of Oregon Health & Science University successful Portland (SN: 4/16/24). “It’s secreted successful a different way. It’s grown, it’s released successful a different way.”

Due to a shortage of investigation connected menstrual attraction and play products, Bataglioli and colleagues did not person a guidelines of experimental techniques to tie from and adapt. Instead, they designed galore of their methods from scratch. “That’s a connection to nan technological organization — there’s thing retired there,” says Zeinab Hosseinidoust, a biomedical technologist astatine McMaster University successful Hamilton, Canada. “Even much important than nan existent investigation that was done is nan connection that this activity sends.”