Why can silicone rubber materials be used in medical devices?
Silicone is a kind of macromolecule elastomer widely used in the medical industry. Its biggest advantage is simple composition, safety and reliability, and good biocompatibility. Compared with other materials, it has unique advantages: compared with PVC materials, silicone materials can achieve very soft effects without adding plasticizers; compared with latex materials, silicone materials have no risk of sensitization; Compared with thermoplastic elastomer materials, silicone materials have more reliable temperature and pressure resistance performance. At the same time, the organic silicon material itself has two major forms of solid and liquid, suitable for a variety of molding processes, and can well adapt to the complex processing needs of the medical industry.
In the past, silicone molding mainly used a complex injection molding process: the manufacturer must first prepare the mold, and then pressurize the liquid silicone rubber into it. This method is too costly and is only suitable for large-scale production. Silicone 3D printing enables a completely new part design. Silicone 3D printing can cover different life cycles of products, without using any tools or molds, digital models can be directly converted into physical objects, thereby reducing production costs, saving production time, greatly shortening the process cycle, and rapid improvement during product development. Products; on the other hand, silicone 3D printing can also integrate functional parts and prototypes with complex structures.
