Does Higher Transparency of Medical Grade Silicone Tubing Indicate Better Quality?

Medical grade silicone tube is a tubular product made of linear polymerized organosilicon with a high molecular weight as a basis

The medical grade silicone tube is non-toxic and odorless, resistant to biological aging, and has a short-term residence in the body, providing functions such as fluid supplementation, rescue, drainage injection, and anti-adhesion. Due to the special properties of silicone rubber, especially its excellent biocompatibility and bioinertness, its reaction to human tissue is very small. After implantation into human tissue, it does not cause an immune reaction and does not cause inflammation in surrounding tissues, making it increasingly used in the medical device field.

Typical applications include drainage tubes, transfusion tubes, various catheters, silicone hemostatic tubes/belts, peristaltic pump silicone tubes (biopharmaceuticals), and other industries such as urethral catheters, indwelling needles, and trachea tubes. Many new devices are not only designed for long-term use in hospital care equipment but also used in emergency and home care equipment. Therefore, the correct use of raw materials that come into contact with human tissue is very important and is also a characteristic of medical-grade silicone materials. The core manufacturers of medical-grade silicone rubber tubes are mainly distributed in North America, Europe, China, and Japan.

Transparency is not a determining factor for the quality of medical grade silicone tubes

Many friends have doubts about the transparency of medical-grade silicone tubes. Is a higher transparency level an indication of better quality? Many people think so because the silicone tubes for intravenous injection that we usually see are very transparent. However, that is because its wall thickness is relatively thin, and the silicone tube is relatively small, so it appears to be very transparent.

In fact, medical grade silicone tubes are generally semi-transparent with some haze, and are not as transparent as we think. Because the color of silicone rubber itself is semi-transparent, making it into a highly transparent silicone tube will change the physical structure of silicone rubber itself, resulting in changes in various parameters, which ultimately affects the service life of medical-grade silicone tubes. Although theoretically speaking, it is possible to achieve high transparency, it is not practical due to the nature of the silicone rubber raw materials.

Compared to ordinary silicone tubes, medical-grade silicone tubes used in medical devices have higher transparency, no odor, excellent aging resistance, high tear resistance, excellent resilience, permanent non-deformation, strong acid and alkali resistance, and high and low-temperature resistance. They can work normally in the range of -50-250 degrees Celsius and have excellent insulation and permeability. Generally, imported silicone materials or platinum silicone tubes are used as raw materials.

For medical grade silicone tubes, transparency is not the determining factor for their quality. Instead, it depends on the production process of the silicone tube and whether the product meets its use parameters.