The influence of coagulation on the drying dynamics of blood pools

Abstract

Little is currently known about the importance of clotting during the drying of blood pools. While this is of little moment for droplets where drying occurs faster than contact-phase-induced clotting, clotting may significantly influence blood pools drying as it transform a liquid into a gel. To investigate this influence, we compare the drying of citrated and unmodified blood pools at constant haematocrit, showing large morphological differences during drying, both in the surface appearance, in the colour lightness, as well as in the generation and location of cracks. Further, we designed a clotting-reactivation protocol which allowed recovering the morphological evolution of pure blood drying while using citrate-sampled blood. This result opens the way to the use of citrated blood in blood pools investigations.

Keywords: BPA; Blood pools; Coagulation; Drying; Evaporation; Fluid dynamics.