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Excellent case by B. Dale Sharpe DO yesterday out of First State Orthopaedics
Congratulations on the being the first in Deleware to use Oxford Performance polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) customs!
Great placement and utilization of the technology by a very skilled and thorough surgeon. Not too often we see a fully intact 5 minute talectomy!
Most importantly, this patient should finally see some relief in their chronic leg pain.
source:Delta Medical Solutions
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Hiro Technologies Launches World’s First Fungi-Powered MycoDigestible Diapers:
Each MycoDigestible Diaper comes with a small packet of shelf-stable, plastic-eating fungi
Hiro Technologies officially launches the world’s first MycoDigestible Diapers (means “digested by fungi”), a first-of-its-kind product designed to break down in a landfill thanks to fungi-powered decomposition technology. Co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Miki Agrawal (Thinx, Tushy) and Tero Isokauppila (Four Sigmatic), Hiro's launch marks the debut of an entirely new category of sustainability a natural end-of-life solution for plastic waste, beginning with the one item parents can’t live without.
Every year, over 18 billion diapers are discarded into U.S. landfills—each one destined to sit for 500 years, leaking microplastics and chemicals into soil and water. Globally, the plastic crisis has spiraled out of control, with 430 million tons of plastic waste generated annually and less than 10% of it recycled. While governments stall and corporations greenwash, the problem grows deeper and dirtier. But a new company is offering a radically hopeful path forward, powered by the planet’s oldest clean-up crew: fungi.
Diapers are the number one source of household plastic waste and the third largest contributor to landfills overall,” says Agrawal. Each baby goes through ~5000 diapers. The very first disposable diaper ever made? It’s still in a landfill today. We knew there had to be a better way.
Each MycoDigestible Diaper comes with a small packet of shelf-stable, plastic-eating fungi. Parents simply throw the packet away with the used diaper no extra steps required. Once the diaper reaches a landfill, the fungi activate in the presence of moisture and begin to break down the diaper’s materials from the inside out. These fungi secrete enzymes that target and sever the carbon bonds in plastic, transforming the waste into mycelium and nutrient-rich soil over time. Traditional landfill conditions are typically too dry, oxygen-poor, or contaminated for decomposition to occur naturally, but Hiro's innovation brings its own biological degradation system directly into the waste stream no industrial composting or special infrastructure required.
In parallel, Hiro is working with waste facilities and landfill operators to embed fungi more broadly across their systems, with a long-term goal of creating an ecosystem where fungi can help accelerate the breakdown of other plastic waste at scale.
While plastic-eating fungi were first discovered by scientists over a decade ago, their potential has remained locked in labs until now. Hiro has pioneered a commercial, shelf-stable fungi technology that targets plastic at a molecular level, breaking it down into soil and mycelium (the root system of mushrooms) without harmful emissions or energy-intensive processes.
source:Hiro /nonwovens-industry.com
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igus Introduces New PTFE-Free, Wear-Resistant Plain Bearings
Coinciding with Hannover Messe, igus has announced a significant development in polymer plain bearing technology. Material scientists at the company’s Cologne facility have successfully created PTFE-free versions of their widely used iglide® G, iglide X, and iglide H plain bearing materials. These polymer bearings are widely used globally in various industries, including mechanical engineering, plant construction, and the automotive sector.
In recent years, intensive research and comprehensive testing have been conducted by igus’s dedicated in-house materials development department. Their primary objective was to eliminate PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) from their standard bearing materials.
Lars Butenschön, Head of the iglide Plain Bearing Technology Business Unit, confirmed, “A PTFE-free variant of iglide G material has been successfully developed.
This development is notable due to the widespread use of iglide G bearings, which are recognized for their exceptional wear resistance and low friction.
Maintaining the established performance characteristics of iglide G bearings without PTFE demanded significant development efforts. However, meticulous formulation engineering has ensured that vital material properties remain unchanged, including temperature stability, mechanical strength, and shrinkage behavior. This was verified through rigorous tests conducted in igus’s 4,100-square-foot test laboratory, underscoring the company’s extensive expertise in tribologically optimized polymers, which have been developed over the past 60 years.
Smooth Transition to PTFE-Free Bearings:
#igus also announced PTFE-free versions of its iglide X and iglide H series. iglide X bearings, valued for their high-temperature resistance and use in aerospace applications, now omit #PTFE entirely. Similarly, the iglide H series, known for its excellent moisture resistance and suitability for the marine and chemical industries, has also transitioned to PTFE-free formulations. In 2024, igus eliminated PTFE from its popular iglide J and W300 materials.
Butenschön emphasized, “PTFE-free solutions are now available for the five most common iglide bearing materials, which collectively cover approximately 80% of global iglide applications.
This advancement enables users to transition seamlessly to new PTFE-free materials without needing costly adjustments or customized solutions. Furthermore, pricing remains unchanged mainly, ensuring economic stability for customers.
Meeting Regulatory Challenges Proactively:
This innovation arrives at a critical time when many companies face uncertainty due to potential new restrictions on PFAS usage by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). PFAS, known for their water-, grease-, and dirt-repellent properties, are integral components in numerous consumer and industrial products.
source:igus
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Discover the future of affordable lightweight construction
The time has come: we are pleased to introduce our latest innovation: Tenax™ IMS65 E23 36K 1630tex - our first ever 36K carbon fiber. This innovation sets new standards in performance and economy. And the best part? It is the third new product we have launched in a very short time!
Why Tenax™ IMS65 E23 36K 1630tex?
✔️ Impressive tensile strength of 5800 MPa
✔️High tensile modulus of 280 GPa
✔️Perfect for high speed winding and prepreg production
✔️Excellent price/performance ratio for high performance at competitive cost
This advanced carbon fiber is ideal for high performance industrial applications - especially in pressure vessels.
source:Teijin Carbon America,Inc.
Every year, millions of tires end up in landfills, creating an environmental crisis with far-reaching consequences. In the United States alone, over 274 million tires were scrapped in 2021, with nearly a fifth of them being discarded into landfills. The accumulation of these waste materials presents not only a space issue but also introduces environmental hazards, such as chemical leaching and spontaneous combustion. While pyrolysis—a process that chemically recycles rubber through high-temperature decomposition—is widely used, it generates harmful byproducts like benzene and dioxins, posing health and environmental risks.
A U.S. Department of Energy-funded study, “Deconstruction of Rubber via C–H Amination and Aza-Cope Rearrangement,” recently published in Nature and led by Dr. Aleksandr Zhukhovitskiy, William R. Kenan, Jr. Fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill, introduces a novel chemical method for breaking down rubber waste. This pioneering technique utilizes C–H amination and a polymer rearrangement strategy to transform discarded rubber into valuable precursors for epoxy resins, offering an innovative and sustainable alternative to traditional recycling methods.
Rubber, including the synthetic kind used in tires, is composed of polymers cross-linked together into a three-dimensional network that behaves as a tough, flexible material. Recycling these materials is difficult due to the extensive cross-linking within the polymer structure, which gives rubber its durability but also makes it resistant to degradation. Traditional methods for breaking down rubber focus on two main approaches: de-vulcanization, which breaks sulfur cross-links but weakens the polymer’s mechanical properties, and cleavage of the polymer backbones using oxidative or catalytic methods, which often result in complex, low-value byproducts. Neither approach provides an efficient, scalable solution for repurposing rubber waste.
“Our research seeks to overcome these challenges by developing a method that breaks down rubber into functional materials that possess value even as a mixture,” said Dr. Zhukhovitskiy, who is the senior author of the study.
The researchers introduce a sulfur diimide reagent that enables the installation of amine groups at specific locations in the polymer chains. This step is crucial because it sets the stage for the subsequent backbone rearrangement. This chemical reaction reorganizes the polymer backbone, breaking down the rubber into soluble amine-functionalized materials that can be used to produce epoxy resins.
The researchers showed that their two-step process works very well. In a test with a model polymer, they broke it down significantly, reducing its molecular weight from 58,100 g/mol to about 400 g/mol. When they applied the method to used rubber, it broke down completely in just six hours, turning it into a soluble material with amine groups that could be used to manufacture broadly useful materials like epoxy resins.
The efficiency of this method is particularly striking when compared to traditional recycling techniques, which often require extreme temperatures or expensive catalysts. The researchers achieved their results under mild conditions (35-50°C, or 95-122°F) in aqueous media, making the process more environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
Epoxy resins are widely used in industries for adhesives, coatings, and composites. They are usually made from petroleum-based chemicals like bisphenol A and curing agents. This research shows that amine-modified poly-dienes, produced using the researchers’ method, can create epoxy materials with strength similar to commercial resins.
“In moments like this I come to appreciate the power of organic synthesis,” said Maxim Ratushnyy, a co-author of the paper and former postdoctoral scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill. “It is fascinating to see the ease with which the developed sequence of simple, yet powerful, organic transformations can take on a stubborn C—C bond and convert polybutadiene and polyisoprene-based rubbers into potentially valuable epoxy resins.”
Beyond its practical applications, this study marks a significant step toward greener recycling technologies. The researchers evaluated the environmental impact of their process using the Environmental Impact Factor (E-factor), a measure of waste generated relative to the product yield.
“E-factor is a simple but powerful metric to compare the impact of a new process to incumbents, but also to highlight process steps that can be improved as we work to transition this process out of the lab and into practice,” said Dr. Geoff Lewis, a research specialist at the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems.
While the complete E-factor, which includes solvent use, was high, the simple E-factor, excluding solvents, was much lower, highlighting areas where the process could be further optimized for sustainability. The team is already exploring greener solvent systems and alternative reaction conditions to reduce waste generation.
“Our research represents a paradigm shift in how we approach the problem of rubber waste,” said Sydney Towell, a co-author of the study and Ph.D. candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill. “By harnessing the power of C–H amination and backbone rearrangement, this method provides a new pathway to transforming post-consumer rubber into high-value materials, reducing reliance on landfills and minimizing environmental harm.
source:University of North Carolina
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DuPont Launches New Liveo™ Pharma TPE Ultra-Low Temp Tubing for the Biopharma Industry
DuPont today announced it has launched DuPont™ Liveo™ Pharma TPE Ultra-Low Temp Tubing, a new thermoplastic elastomer tubing designed to withstand the low temperatures required for many of today’s biopharmaceutical processing applications.
Sterilizable, weldable, sealable Liveo™ Pharma TPE Ultra-Low Temp Tubing is an ISO Class 7 cleanroom-manufactured tubing that offers improved elastomer toughness and ductility down to -86 °C; resistance to bend, crush and impact at -80 °C; good pumpability and low spallation; and excellent burst pressure resistance and chemical resistance. The phthalate-free tubing’s purity and regulatory data include USP Class VI standards, extractables USP <665>, elemental impurities USP <232> and Biocompatibility ISO 10993 (part 5, 6, 11, 23), among others. A comprehensive data package is available to facilitate qualification and validation.
“In recent years, there’s been increasing demand for high-purity materials that can meet the biopharmaceutical processing industry’s needs for low-temperature exposure,” said Diana Salvadori, DuPont Global Senior Product Marketing Manager for Biopharma Processing. “With our new Liveo™ Pharma TPE Ultra-Low Temp Tubing, DuPont is offering an additional thermoplastic elastomer tubing option for fluid transport and single-use bioprocessing applications, facilitating adoption and compatibility with alternative TPE tubing offerings.”
Liveo™ Pharma TPE Ultra-Low Temp Tubing is the second TPE tubing product launched by DuPont in recent years, joining Liveo™ Pharma TPE Tubing in the company’s portfolio of solutions for biopharma processing applications – which also includes numerous silicone-based tubing and overmolded assembly (OMA) products.
“DuPont’s TPE tubing products complement our silicone-based Liveo™ Pharma range – and they are produced under the same high-quality principles as our products that already are known and trusted by the biopharma industry,” Salvadori said.
source: Dupont
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OsteoFab 3D printed PEKK allows you to modify the device. It is also handy that OsteoFab is mechanically like bone, antibacterial, radiolucent and osteoconductive.
Antibacterial Properties of OsteoFab® PEKK In 2017, a study was initiated to examine the antibacterial potential of OsteoFab PEKK due to its material chemistry and inherent rough surface (26 µm average Rq). The results showed that OsteoFab PEKK provides an inherent, antibacterial environment and demonstrated decreased bacterial adhesion and growth when compared to PEEK (Invibio PEEK-OPTIMA®).12 In this study, OsteoFab PEKK showed a 40-55% higher antibacterial effect when examined using a Live/Dead assay, just on the native surface of printed PEKK.
Culminating in a publication in the International Journal of Nanomedicine, these results highlight the unique properties attainable when the right material and manufacturing method are combined to produce more robust medical devices. In order to better understand the mechanisms of this observed antibacterial property, a follow-up study was initiated in 2020 to extend the results of the 2017 publication. The follow-up study showed a greater adsorption of the proteins casein, mucin, and lubricin to OsteoFab PEKK when compared to PEEK (Invibio PEEK-OPTIMA®) and titanium surfaces.13 This finding is important because the proteins tested are endogenous and known to decrease bacterial attachment and growth.
With the greater adsorption of these proteins, attributed to the similarity in surface energy between them and PEKK, there was a clear correlation of this increased adsorption to significantly decreased bacterial colonization on OsteoFab PEKK compared to PEEK and titanium. This result was consistent across all bacteria tested, which included S. epidermidis, P. aeruginosa, and MRSA. The Live/Dead assay results also illustrated fewer viable bacterial colonies on PEKK when compared to PEEK and titanium surfaces, which was consistent with the study published in 2017.
Source:OXFORD PERFORMANCE MATERIALS, INC.
#3dprinting #footandankle #orthopedicsurgery #osteofab #PEEK #PEKK #antibacterial
The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) today announced the signing of two strategic transactions to divest its European Petrochemica...
