The international standards for surgical implants have strict regulations on the chemical composition of metal materials used in implant design. Taking stainless steel implants as an example, international standards stipulate the grades of steel and its chemical composition such as Ni, Cr, Mo and Mn.
However, common medical stainless steels, such as 316L stainless steel, still have biocompatibility and related problems, including tissue reactions (such as edema, infection, tissue necrosis, etc.) caused by corrosion products caused by corrosion or wear after stainless steel is implanted in the human body. Pain and allergic reactions, etc. Especially the lesions induced by the precipitation of nickel ions in stainless steel. Therefore, the field of implant design still needs low-nickel and nickel-free medical stainless steel materials.
With the development of original materials, the manufacturing technology of surgical implants and surgical instruments is also constantly developing. Among them, metal 3D printing technology based on powder bed laser melting (LPBF) technology has shown a clear industrialization direction in this field. For additive manufacturing technology, new materials that are more optimized in terms of chemical composition and additive manufacturing processing performance are also needed.
Carpenter Technology has developed an additive manufacturing medical stainless steel material, which contains almost no nickel and shows good processing performance in a laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) 3D printing system.
Optimized for improving the quality of implanted devices
Optimization of chemical composition
Carpenter compared new medical stainless steel materials with traditional stainless steel materials. According to Carpenter's data, the nickel content of BioDur 108 stainless steel is up to 0.05 wt%. In addition to the chemical composition optimized for patients, BioDur 108 also has better mechanical properties than BioDur 316LS material.