Methods for manufacturing and distributing semi-rigid acoustic coupling articles and packaging for ultrasound imaging

Abstract

Disclosed are methods for scalable, cost-effective, and rapid production manufacturing and packaging a semi-rigid acoustic coupling medium that can be used for ultrasound diagnostic and treatment systems and techniques. In some aspects, a method includes forming a staged solution by adding together a stock solution comprising a monomer and a block copolymer in deoxygenated water and a primed solution comprising a covalent crosslinking agent and a catalyst; forming a gel-sol by mixing the staged solution with a first network activator solution comprising a monomer activator and a second network activator solution comprising a block copolymer activator; dispensing the gel-sol into a mold; and curing the gel-sol in the mold to produce a semi-rigid acoustic coupling material, where the method is carried under an inert atmosphere.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.