Medical Sector Drives Growth in Plastic Injection Molding
When there is a need for a large volume of highly intricate parts and components, plastic injection molding offers a viable solution for many designs. As such, the medical sector commonly uses injection-molded parts to meet the industry’s high demand for products and equipment. Plastic injection molding techniques meet the necessary standards for health and safety in a broad range of medical applications.
Medical Injection Molding
The unique design demands of medical-grade parts, tools, and equipment require a fabrication process that can handle the complex designs and medical cleanliness requirements of healthcare applications. Medical injection molding meets these quality standards, making it a strong growth driver for the injection molding sector.
Medical-grade injection-molded products offer natural resistance to contaminants and cleaning chemicals, durability, thermal resistance, and economies of scale for large production runs. These advantages make this an ideal process for creating affordable, high-use, high-quality medical supplies.
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Medical-Grade Materials
While there are strict limitations on the material types manufacturers may use for medical applications, injection molding offers an ideal range of materials with suitable properties. Plastic materials resin frequently used for medical devices and components include:
Polyethylene, which is not suitable for autoclave sterilization due to low heat deflection.
Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, which provides an ideal wearing surface for prosthetics.
Polypropylene, which will withstand high melting temperatures of autoclave sterilization as well as radiation stabilization processes.
Polystyrene, which is a colorless hard plastic with limited flexibility.
Polycarbonate, which demonstrates high heat, UV-light and impact resistance, contains flame retardant properties, and a higher level of transparency.
Utilizing each of these materials appropriately enables medical manufacturers to meet the demands for quality in a broad range of medical injection molding applications. Medical processes that have seen improvement using injection molding include surgery, drug allotments, and pharmaceutical development. Advances in medical equipment have also occurred thanks to injection molding, including heart pump parts, drug delivery products, orthopedic devices, and diabetes devices.
Applications of Medical Injection Moldings
With strict regulations and increased demand for biodegradable polymers influencing the medical industry, medical injection molding will continue to see steady growth for several years to come. The medical sector is expected to drive the largest portion of growth through 2025 for the injection molding sector.
Plastic injection molding in the medical field provides a high level of product quality using a cost-effective means of fabrication. The regulated processes used in injection molding help to ensure that products meet the health and safety standards necessary for medical devices.
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