Biocompatible filaments

[mevander 0]

Hi.

As I'm working with biomedical engineering, I've been getting some questions from colleagues regarding biocompatible materials for the ultimaker. I've understod that PLA actually is fairly biocompatible but it is also not as strong as we would like. Can anyone recommend other materials that would be ok for contact with living cells?

Cheers

Mikael

 

[Titus 170]

I believe Colorfabb's XT is the most certified material as it has FDA approval. Not sure about the nylon and PET materials out there though. And the difference between foodsafe and living cellsafe is also quite extensive I'd say.

 

[mevander 0]

I was under the impression that XT had FDA compliance for contact with food but not more than that? But that might have been what you meant

 

[DidierKlein 712]

What do you mean by contact with living cells?

PLA is used in surgeries (probably not the one we print).

 

[mevander 0]

People have been discussing about testing both microfluidic chips or components of them that handle cells as well as some parts of a culture chamber where cells are expected to proliferate and be happy. I also had a colleague who work with implanting bone replacements in small animals who was a bit curious if it would be possible to model, print, test mechanically and implant designs.

 

[DidierKlein 712]

I had a similar project when i bought my UM2. I was looking into possibilities of printing surgical pins in PLA. It seems doable to me, the only thing that is problematic to me is the whole testing and approval of this.

But PLA is used in medecine i'm just not sure in the FDM technology is good for this?

 

[mevander 0]

No, you're absolutely right. I think that the point here was that rather than ordering expensive implants to test them you could do design and some tests with the simpler systems and then order a "real" printed implant when you had something you wanted to look more closely at.

I think I read somewhere that Taulman was working on a certified medical grade nylon that would be very interesting. It would be one step closer to something I would trust more at least

 

[DidierKlein 712]

Yes i've read about the taulmann filament too.

I don't know if XT is good for this kind of use, maybe you should send an email to colorfabb to see what they say about it... When i did some research on this, XT wasn't available...

PLA has some good reviews, it's also good because it's supposed to degrade itself after a couple of months (6months to 2 years).

 

[mevander 0]

Thanks, I'll look into it and if I find something very interesting I'll try to remember to post it here as well

 

[DidierKlein 712]

This is the topic i created when looking in the possibilities:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3966-use-of-pla-for-surgical-pins