Health and Tech: Carbon material vital in medical tech, devices
It is being leveraged to manufacture devices and different healthcare applications
Carbon is the most basic element for all life forms on Earth! While many of us have learnt a lot about the importance of carbon in school, very little is known to people about carbon’s crucial role in medical technology and manufacturing medical devices.
Due to its ability to remain stable and form bonds with different kinds of elements, in the last few years, carbon has become a vital part for manufacturing of medical devices. Increasingly, it is being leveraged as a material to manufacture medical devices and different health care applications.
Carbon as a material, in the last few years, has quickly started replacing traditional metals like iron, alloys, iron, silicon, titanium etc. In a paper, published in Nature science journal on the use of carbon for manufacturing micro-needles, researchers from IIT Kharagpur led by Dr Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya said, “As a major advantage of carbon over silicon or other materials, carbon is available in various allotropes with unique physicochemical properties, which allows researchers to tailor its properties for unique applications”.
The IIT-Kharagpur researchers, who collaborated with ICMR to design and develop carbon-based micro-needles, in the same paper said “Because carbon is the basic element of all life forms and has been successfully applied as a material for medical applications, it is desirable to investigate carbon for drug delivery applications as well”.
Indeed, the medical devices industry has been utilizing carbon to manufacture a plethora of medical devices. Carbon has been used for manufacturing orthopedic devices, carbon fibres and composites are used for orthopedic surgeries, surgical instruments, artificial heart valves and even in cancer treatment.
Carbon Fibre:
In the last few years, carbon fibre is finding its applications in almost all kinds of applications across multiple sectors. Carbon fibre is utilized in manufacturing jewellery, cell phones, and even in life-saving implantable medical devices.
The application of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) has rapidly increased in medical technology. The CFRP has high resistance to chemicals, light weight and it’s easy to sterilize, which makes it a favorite for healthcare professionals. As a result, CFRP, which was earlier utilized in aerospace and automotive industries, is now increasingly being utilized in the medical sector and is quickly replacing traditional metal-based medical implants.
What is carbon fibre?
Carbon fibre is a polymer (also known as graphite fibre) and is a very strong material that is lightweight. Carbon fibre is five-times stronger than steel and twice as stiff but at the same time, it is lighter than steel, which makes it ideal for manufacturing medical devices. From operating tables in operation theatres, components in orthopaedic implants, X-ray machine components etc, carbon is increasingly being utilized in manufacturing life-saving medical devices.
Composite carbon materials are biologically inert, which has made them ideal for surgical equipment. Carbon also has radiolucent (transparent to radiation), which has made it an ideal material for imaging devices, medical scanners and X-ray imaging applications.
Carbon fibres are not affected by radiation, as a result they are safe for manufacturing vital medical components for implants, medical wheelchair components, prosthetics, implantable devices etc.
