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Metals are the oldest of biomedical implant materials and metallic alloys remain the material of choice for applications involving hard tissue replacement. Recently, porous metal foams have received increasing attention, due to the advantages associated with an open porous structure. Foamed metals have many potential applications in biomedical applications including fully foamed implant components and coatings on solid implants and can be manufactured by the space holder method with relatively high porosity levels.
Foam metals based on biocompatible metallic materials (e.g. Ti and Ti-6A1-4V) are expected to provide better interaction with bone. This is mainly due to higher degree of bone growth into porous surfaces and higher degree of body fluid transport through three-dimensional interconnected array of pores (open cell foam), leading to better interlocking between implant and bone and hence reducing or avoiding the well-known implant loosening. Furthermore, the elastic modulus of foam metals can be easily tailored with porosity level to match that of natural bone, leading to a better performance by avoiding the high degree of elastic mismatch which currently exists between conventional solid metallic implants and bone.
Polylactic acid (PLA) is one of the main biobased thermoplastic polymers due to its good processability and its high strength and modulus. And porous scaffolds based on PLA and its copolymers have been extensively used as templates for potential tissue regeneration applications, due to its attractive biocompatibility and excellent mechanical properties. Its structure can be engineered to meet the requirements of nutrient trafficking and cell and tissue invasion, and to tune the degradation rate and mechanical stability on the specific tissue to be repaired.
With years of experience designing and developing foam components for biomedical applications, Alfa Chemistry can offer the best biomedical foam materials for your custom solutions. For more information, please don't hesitate to contact us.
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