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MACHINE DESIGN

ASA

Nov 15, 2002

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Acrylic-styrene-acrylonitrile (ASA) polymers are amorphous plastics which have

mechanical properties similar to those of ABS resins. However, the ASA properties
are far less affected by outdoor weathering.
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ASA is a terpolymer that can be produced by either a patented, proprietary

reaction process or by a graft process. In the reaction method, ASA is made by
introducing a grafted acrylic ester elastomer during a copolymerization of styrene
and acrylonitrile (SAN). The finely divided powder is uniformly distributed in and
grafted to the SAN molecular chains. The outstanding weatherability of ASA is due
to the acrylic ester elastomer.

ASA resins are available in natural, off white, and a broad range of standard and
custom-matched colors. Base ASA resins are sold under the trade names Luran S
(BASF Plastic Materials), Geloy (General Electric Plastics) and Centrex (Monsanto
Chemical Co.). ASA resins can be compounded with other polymers to make alloys
and compounds that benefit from ASA's weather resistance. Also, ASA sheet is
used as a capstock over other plastics.

Properties: ASA parts have high gloss, good chemical and heat resistance, and
high impact strength, even at low temperatures. Typical heat-deflection
temperatures for ASA are 180 to 220 °F (82 to 104 °C) at 264 psi. Tensile
strengths are 4,000 to 7,000 psi; elongation at break, 25 to 40%, flexural modulus,
220,000 to 250,000 psi; and notched Izod impact strengths are 9.0 to 11.0 ft-
lb/in. (at 73 °F) and 4.0 to 6.0 ft-lb/in. (at -40 °F).

ASA is resistant to saturated hydrocarbons, low-aromatic gasoline and lubricating

oil, vegetable and animal oils, water, aqueous solutions of salts, and dilute acids
and alkalis. However, it is attacked by concentrated inorganic acids, aromatic and
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chlorinated hydrocarbons, esters, ethers, ketones, and some alcohols. ASA offers
better resistance to environmental stress cracking than ABS. With respect to flame
resistance, ASA is available with UL 94-HB classification.

Processing: ASA resins can be processed by most conventional methods. These

include profile and sheet extrusion and coextrusion, injection molding, structural
foam molding, and extrusion-blow molding. Extruded sheet can be thermoformed.
ASA should be blow molded using extruders with grooved, cooled, and thermally
insulated feed sections. Screws should have somewhat deeper flights in order to
reduce frictional heat. Optimum results are obtained with machines having
accumulators.

ASA parts can be welded using thermal and spin techniques. In some cases,
ultrasonic welding is possible. ASA parts also can be solvent welded using
2-butanone, dichloroethylene, or cyclohexane. ASA parts readily accept and retain
print and coatings without prior surface treatment. Vacuum metallizing by
conventional methods is also possible.

Applications:Building/construction -- Gutters and fittings, drain pipe and

fittings, signs, mail boxes, mobile home skirting, flower boxes, and shutters.
Recreation/leisure -- Outdoor furniture, windsurfer boards, swimming pool
pumps, boat hulls, pickup truck caps, and filter housings and spas.
Automotive/transportation -- Exterior sideview mirror housings, grilles, drip
rails, and bumper covers. Miscellaneous -- Lawn-mower components, garden-hose
reels, snowmobile housings, machinery covers, and covers for outdoor lighting.

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colematt/iStock/Getty Images

TECHNOLOGIES > MATERIALS

Imaging Method Lets Surgeons Remove Small

Ovarian Tumors

Tagging tumors with carbon nanotubes that

fluoresce under near-infrared light helps improve
surgical survival rates.

Stephen Mraz 1 | May 02, 2019

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Ovarian cancer is usually diagnosed only after it reaches an advanced stage, with
many tumors spread throughout the abdomen. Most patients undergo surgery to
remove as many of these tumors as possible (a procedure known as debulking),
but because some are so small and widespread, it is difficult to get rid of all of
them.

Researchers at MIT, working with surgeons and oncologists at Massachusetts

General Hospital (MGH), have now developed a way to improve the accuracy of
this surgery. Using a novel fluorescence imaging method, they could find and
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remove tumors as small as 0.3 millimeters—smaller than a poppy seed—during
surgery in mice. Mice that underwent this type of image-guided surgery survived
40% longer than those who had tumors removed without the guided device.

“What’s nice about this system is that it allows for real-time information about the
size, depth, and distribution of tumors,” says Angela Belcher, a biology professor
at MIT.

The researchers are now seeking FDA approval for a phase 1 clinical trial to test
the imaging device in humans. In the future, they hope to adapt the device for
monitoring patients at risk for tumor recurrence, and eventually for early
diagnosis of ovarian cancer, which is easier to treat if it is caught earlier.

Researchers at MIT have developed an image-guided surgical method that could

help surgeons better find and remove tiny ovarian tumors. Fluorescent carbon
nanotubes are used as probes that bind to the tumors, making them easier to see.

Because there is no good way to detect early-stage ovarian cancer, it is one of the
most difficult types of cancer to treat. Of 250,000 new cases diagnosed each year
worldwide, 75% are in an advanced stage. In the U.S., the five-year combined
survival rate for all stages of ovarian cancer is 47%—only a slight improvement
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from 38% three decades ago, despite the advent of chemotherapeutic drugs such
as cisplatin, approved by the FDA in 1978 for ovarian cancer treatment. In
contrast, the five-year combined survival rate for all stages of breast cancer has
steadily improved, from around 75% in the 1970s to greater than 90% now.

The new imaging device uses light in the near-infrared (NIR) spectrum to get an
unprecedented combination of resolution and penetration-depth in living tissue. It
helps surgeons find and remove small tumors during surgery by providing
continuous, real-time imaging of the abdomen, with tumors highlighted by
fluorescence. To make the tumors visible, the researchers designed chemical
probes using single-walled carbon nanotubes that emit fluorescent light when
illuminated by a laser. They coated the nanotubes with a peptide that binds to
SPARC, a protein overexpressed by highly invasive ovarian cancer cells. This probe
binds to the tumors and makes them fluoresce at NIR wavelengths.

The researchers tested the image-guided method in mice that had ovarian tumors
implanted in a region of the abdominal cavity and showed that surgeons could
locate and remove tumors as small as 0.3 millimeters. Ten days after surgery,
these mice had no detectable tumors, while mice that had undergone the
traditional, non-image-guided surgery had many residual tumors missed by the
surgeon.

By three weeks after the surgery, many of the tumors had grown back in the mice
that underwent image-guided surgery, but those mice still had a median survival
rate that was 40% longer than that of mice that underwent traditional surgery.

No other imaging method could locate tumors that small during surgery,
according to the researchers.

“You can’t have a patient in a CT or MRI machine and have the surgeon perform
thee debulking procedure at the same time, but you can’t expose the patient to
X-ray radiation for the several the surgery takes. This optics-based imaging
method lets us to do the procedure safely,” Belcher says.

For most ovarian cancer patients, tumor debulking surgery is followed by

chemotherapy, so the researchers now plan to do another study where they treat
the mice with chemotherapy after image-guided surgery, in hopes of preventing
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the remaining tiny tumors from spreading.

“We know that the amount of tumor removed at the time of surgery for patients
with advanced-stage ovarian cancer is directly correlated with their outcome,”
Belcher says. “This imaging methods lets the surgeon go beyond the limits of
resecting tumors visible to the naked eye and should usher in a new age of effective
debulking surgery.”

Now that they have demonstrated that this concept can be successfully applied to
imaging during surgery, researchers hope to begin adapting the method for use in
human patients.

“In principle, it’s quite doable,” Belcher says. “It’s purely the mechanics and the
funding at this point because the mouse experiment served as the proof of
principle and may actually have been more challenging than building a human-
scale method.”

The researchers also hope to use this type of imaging to monitor patients after
surgery, and eventually to develop it as a diagnostic tool for screening women at
high risk for developing ovarian cancer.

“A major focus for us right now is developing the technology to be able diagnose
ovarian cancer early, in stage 1 or stage 2, before the disease becomes
disseminated,” Belcher says. “That could have a huge impact on survival rates,
because survival is related to the stage of detection.”

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