Assessing the performance of various polymer films as artificial skin for jellyfish tentacle firing and venom toxicity evaluation with comparative life cycle assessment
摘要
Global increases in jellyfish populations due to climate change, pollution, and overfishing have led to more encounters with humans, resulting in an uptick in jellyfish envenomation. Appropriate first-aid treatments have sparked ongoing debates among specialists regarding the use of topical chemical agents. Despite the establishment of various testing assays, issues with stability, scalability, suitability for on-site testing, and reproducibility remain. This research aims to develop a polymer-based artificial skin layer by evaluating four different polymer films—polypropylene, linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), a blend of polylactic acid and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PLA/PBAT), and silicone rubber. These materials are being tested as potential alternatives to the traditional porcine intestine film used in the Tentacle Skin Blood Agarose Assay (TSBAA) for jellyfish envenomation testing. The films underwent tensile, puncture resistance, chemical stability, and permeability tests to assess their suitability. Mechanical changes were also studied after exposure to deionized water, salt water, 70% ethyl alcohol, vinegar (5% acetic acid), and baking soda slurry—chemicals that porcine tissue might encounter in TSBAA studies. Results showed that PP, LLDPE and PLA/PBAT silicone were able to form an ultra-thin film (39, 42, 47 μm MD and 38, 47, 45 μm TD, respectively) while silicone exhibits at least double the thickness of the other films. PLA/PBAT blend demonstrated a favorable balance of low puncture resistance (1.80 MPa)—approaching that of silicone rubber (0.84 MPa)—while maintaining superior chemical stability across tested solutions. Although silicone rubber exhibited the lowest puncture resistance, its relatively poor chemical durability and the highest environmental impacts up to 4-fold higher than other polymers, limit its suitability as a sustainable alternative. In contrast, PLA/PBAT films combined adequate puncture performance with improved environmental profiles compared to silicone rubber, supporting their potential as a more balanced and eco-friendly material for TSBAA applications. Life cycle assessment (LCA) further confirmed that PLA/PBAT and polypropylene films exhibited lower global warming potential (2.86 ⋅ 10− 4 kg CO2eq) and non-renewable energy use per functional unit (3.72 ⋅ 10− 3 MJ), underscoring their viability as sustainable alternatives for biomedical assay systems. This work serves as a proof-of-concept, laying a foundational step for developing standardized synthetic skin models. Future studies will focus on optimizing film properties and conducting rigorous validation using live tentacles or isolated cnidocytes, ultimately leading to a more efficient, sustainable, and widely applicable framework for mitigating jellyfish envenomation.