Printing technology on guard of health

What can surprise the owner of an inkjet printer? He already knows that the volume of droplets emitted at space speeds from the printhead is measured in picoliters (nano is the last century). He knows that printing on an inkjet printer can already be cheaper than on a laser one. He knows that ink has not been smeared from a sheet for a long time and does not blur from a drop of water. It all became advertising stamps.

But did you think that your printer could cure your cold, for example? Well, your home or MFP at work can not. But a device for controlled spraying of drugs based on the inkjet printing technology that everyone is used to - yes. At least, such a patent HP received on June 1.

The need for such a device in medicine arises for several reasons. First, the inhaled aerosol is the most convenient way to introduce many types of drugs into the human body.

But to achieve the maximum effectiveness of the use of aerosols today is almost impossible. If the droplets sprayed with a medicine bottle are too large (more than 6 μm in diameter), the medicine will settle in the throat and trachea, before reaching the lungs. By making the drops smaller, we will get further inside the body. But if the drops are too small (less than 0.5 microns), the person will simply exhale them. As a result, if the droplet size goes out of the range of 1-5 microns, the aerosol is practically useless. But even within this range, the size must be varied depending on which disease and which medicine we cure.
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Therefore, drug manufacturers are forced to invent many different spray heads. And their effectiveness still depends strongly on the force of pressure on the cartridge, the direction of spraying, the temperature of the drug, and other factors that cannot be predicted. All this increases the cost of medication and makes the person's recovery more difficult.

The problem is solved with the use of a “smart” spraying system, which can itself evaluate all the factors and adjust the size of the drop as needed. Its composition and principle of operation as a whole repeats the print head - the processor with the help of electrical impulses affects the surface tension of the liquid and forms well-measured drops.

Interestingly, this patent was filed for consideration as early as February 2003. During this time, the release of heads for printers has become truly massive, making their cost extremely low. So, perhaps, in the near future we will see new types of aerosols on the shelves of pharmacies.

By the way, other HP patents can be explored right here - look, there are still a lot of interesting things that you hardly expect to see.