When it comes to surface treatments for medical devices made of polymers, there are two main processing objectives: stickability and wettability. Advanced techniques such as air plasma, flame plasma, and chemical plasma discharges are achieving these objectives by altering the first few atomic layers of the polymer to render surfaces wettable so that adhesive bonding to difficult materials such as polyolefins, silicones, and fluoropolymers can be achieved. More on surface treatment advancements is found in the current issue of Medical Design OR Medical Design magazine.
Other topics in this month’s issue:
• Putting the ‘rapid’ into injection molding
• Working with foreign patent preparers
• Robotic surgical assistant
• Human tissue modeling
• Students design low-cost prosthetic hand