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Smaller scale production of open cell foamed polymer for medical impla

Smaller scale production of open cell foamed polymer for medical impla

Smaller scale production of open cell foamed polymer for medical impla

(OP)
I am helping a smaller company, on a volunteer basis, with developing new products for their industry, which is specialized medical implants.

There currently use a proprietary polymer mixture for implants used in medical bone reconstruction.  They want to begin making implants with this same base polymer material, but in an open cell foamed configuration.  As you may understand, getting materials approved for medical implants is a long and expensive process which they would like to avoid.

So, the idea of processing/foaming the already approved base polymer material in-house was floated.  There appear to be several methods for forming polymer foam materials, but this would be smaller scale and would require an open cell structure....and only inert medical grade gases cold be used to form the cells.  They are looking for 30%-60% dense and relatively large pore...something like 1mm-3mm diameter sized (does not have to be exactly the same...just generally).

Any ideas on which manufacturing method(s) would likely be most successful and should be investigated?  Any direction or input is appreciated.

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