Medical Devices with Porous Plastics Need Proper Designing

Medical Devices new product development (NPD) is a lengthy, multistep process that is often stacked with regulatory restrictions. Designers and engineers are under pressure to develop new and creative medical equipment to fulfil changing market demands in a fast expanding market. The global response to the Covid-19 outbreak heightened demand for not just finished goods, but also components and raw materials.

When building a Medical Devices, sintered porous plastics may not be the first or even the most familiar material that engineers consider. Sintered porous plastics are a fundamental component found at the heart of world-leading Medical Devices due to their versatility and ability to adapt to a wide range of applications. To fulfil various market demands, sintered porous plastics are made from thermoplastic polymers.

Plastic granules are bound together using heat and pressure to form a porous network of tortuous interconnecting pathways, a structure that ultimately dictates the finished material’s key properties and behaviour. The size and distribution of pores are the top two features of porous polymers (pore size). They are important factors in determining the permeability, filtering efficiency, porosity, and strength of a material.Permeability refers to a material’s ability to enable liquids and gases to pass through its porous structure, whereas filtration efficiency refers to the material’s ability to prevent particles from getting through.

Finally, porosity refers to the amount of pore or void space present in a certain substance. Sintered porous plastics’ pore size and tortuous path provide excellent depth filtration for liquids and gases, making them useful in filtering out a wide range of particles. They can also operate as effective bacterial filters by inhibiting microbial entry, which is a feature that is typically desired in point-of-care and surgical devices.