Orthopaedic Implants
Through CEMMNT, orthopaedic implant manufacturers are offered a significant range of measurement solutions which assist in improving both quality and performance.
Orthopaedic implants are now increasingly used across the populace to replace arthritic and/or damaged joints. The combination of the increasing longevity of individuals and the wider use of implants on younger patients, has placed together greater demands on manufacturers to produce longer lasting implants.
For hip implants, the form characteristics of the femoral cup and head are critical to its load bearing capability. Typically however, the main cause of failure in hip joints is due to wear and in particular the particles that are generated. For example, the most common cause of femoral bone lass is due to osteolysis. Although the total cause is not known, it has been attributed to a variety of factors including foreign body reaction to particulate debris, in particular to polymeric debris. As such, the avoidance of wear in hip joints is critical. This requirement typically leads to a high tolerance on surface finish.
The requirements for knee implants (and other orthopaedic implants) are similar to hips in that they require good form and surface finish characteristics to ensure they achieve the desired performance standards. Services that CEMMNT offer include;
a range of 3D measurement systems offering both contact and non-contact technology for form and surface finish, a range of non-contact interferometric systems offering high precision 3D analysis of surface finish, a range of contact profiling systems for accurate surface finish, form and radius measurement on orthopaedic implants, and large and medium capacity systems for highly accurate measurement of roundness, form and cone angle on orthopaedic implants.
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Pharmaceuticals
Solid dose production typically starts with the formation of the drug into particles which range in size from 0.1 to 10μm. It is often important to characterise these particles as their size and shape can provide useful information on the manufacturing process. Particle size has also been shown to influence dissolution rate, content uniformity and sedimentation rates.
The next stage of the pharmaceutical manufacturing process is often to form the particles into a granule by using a binding agent. The resulting granules are typically in the range of a few millimetres and show improvements in flow properties. It is useful to characterise the roughness of granules to correlate this with the manufacturing processes. The final element in tablet manufacture often entails applying a coating to the granules which can serve a variety of functions, including protecting the drug from air and controlling dissolution behaviour. It is often a requirement in tablet manufacture to correlate the surface characteristics of their coatings to their dissolution rate.
There are a wide range of requirements for surface characterisation within the pharmaceutical manufacturing arena, One of the more important is in ensuring that the surface finish of pipes and dies in the process area are of a suitable quality to minimise the bacterial contamination. Pipes used in pharmaceutical plants can be made from stainless steel or plastic and they can have a range of surface finishes, from 2μm to 0.2μm Rq. The surface finish of these pipes is critical when one considers that a common bacteria cell like pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is rod shaped, can be approximately 0.3 to 0.8μm wide and 1 to 1.2μm microns long. Poor surface finish on these pipes could allow for bacteria to build up and would contaminate the manufacturing process.
CEMMNT not only offer clients access to the highest quality and expertise in surface finish, we also make sure that your measurements take place inside brand new, temperature controlled clean room facilities using the very latest in state-of-the-art techniques and instruments.
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Cosmetics/Dermatology
Skin is made up of two kinds of tissue. The epidermis is made up of stratified squamous epithelium and is full of keratin and hardened, and the dermis underlies the epidermis. Wrinkles consist of the retractions of the upper skin layer, which are limited by a bulge in a linear way.
As the population across the globe ages, so to does the demand for anti-aging creams. There is a requirement to verify the performance of these creams but there are also interesting developments within the creams themselves, which include the use of "nanoparticles". Cosmetic manufacturers spend vast amounts of money in R&D on new cosmetic products, which are aimed at improving appearance. Along with safety testing, cosmetic manufacturers need to provide quantitative data on the performance of these creams and lotions.
Although microscopes can provide visual information they are often insufficient for the detailed analysis required. Typical anti-aging cream analysis amounts to analysing a skin sample before and after the application of the cream. Usually replicas of the surface are used, as it is not feasible to measure the actual substrates involved.
Through CEMMT, clients gain access to high resolution state-of-the-art instruments such as the Talysurf CLI or CCI platforms, both of which offer ideal data acquisition tools for this type of application. Talymap Textured Surfaces software (also available through CEMMNT) offers ideal visualisation and analysis, as well as the ability to analyse furrow depth, density and overall texture direction.
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Biochips
Biochips encompass a large area which includes the field of microfluidics, microchips and lab-on-a-chip technologies. They can be broadly defined as measurement devices, prepared using micro-lithographic or micro-arraying technologies, that incorporate a biological recognition component. Biochips share much in common with biosensors by the use of micro-lithography fabrication techniques in their production, hence chip.
Tremendous interest in microfabricated fluidic channel structures (biochips) has grown over the past decade due to the large number of powerful demonstration that have appeared in the literature. The diversity of chemical and biochemical measurement techniques implemented on biochips is large including various electro-phoretic and chromatographic separations, chemical and enzymatic reactions, non-covalent recognition interactions, sample concentration enhancement, and cellular manipulations.
These devices have low cost and small footprints while consuming miniscule quantities of reagents and producing rapid results. Moreover, the manufacturing strategy used to make these devices, i.e., photolithography, allows highly parallel systems to be fabricated at low incremental cost. Biochips open up a vast potential in the area of chemical analysis, however, they rely on good fabrication techniques such as those available through CEMMNT, to ensure effective performance.
Biochips require good channel structure (height and width) and surface topography to ensure efficient flow of chemicals (bioagents) within them. Through CEMMNT, biochip manufacturers are offered a wide range of measurement solutions which assist in improving both quality and performance.
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BioMEMS
As the BioMEMS sector expands, the requirement for nanometric metrology increases, an area where CEMMNT is ideally position to offer companies fast-access to the appropriate technologies and expertise in order to provide effective and accurate solutions.
BioMEMS applies micro devices to biological and medical problems. In their simplest form, technologies in the BioMEMS sector leverage advances in microfabrication and micromaching to create faster, cheaper, hands-off micro and nano scale laboratories, i.e. microfluidics. In more sophisticated forms, BioMEMS devices offer an avenue to artificial organs, personalised drug therapies, and new ways to view cell communication. BioMEMS can be categorised into two categories, Biomedical MEMS and biotechnology MEMS.
Biomedical MEMS deal in vivo with the body and the host anatomy, examples of which would include biotelemetry, drug delivery, biosensors and other physical sensors. Biotechnology MEMS deal in vitro with the biological samples from the host, examples of which would include gene sequencing, functional genomics, drug discover, pharmacogenomics, diagnostics and pathogen detection/ID.
There is currently a great deal of BioMEMS work in the area of drug delivery systems, using microfabrication techniques. Two main categories are envisioned: micromachines nanopore membranes and microparticles. Nanopore membranes are produces using photolithography, thin film depositions and selective etching to create membranes composed of silicon with highly uniform pores in the nanometre range. Microparticles, unlike conventional particulate drug delivery systems such as polymer microspheres, can be thin planar discs with a thickness and diameter of 1 micron. There are also interesting developments in microneedles, sensors and micropumps, which are all geared at delivering drugs in a rapid and targeted fashion.
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Surgical Needles
Surgical needles used in the medical sector require excellent quality to ensure efficient performance. They are typically used to transmit or withdraw fluid from the body and as such they need to exhibit excellent flow characteristics. To achieve this surgical instruments require highly accurate roundness, internal finish and cylindricity characteristics. Through CEMMNT, clients gain access to a wide range of expertise in addressing the particular requirements of surgical needle manufacturers, which typically entails the use of special stylii in order to access the narrow diameters of surgical needles.
There is a larger amount of work in the field of microneedles, which are being used in a variety of medical areas, including biopsy and drug delivery. Arrays of hollow microneedles can be used to continuously carry drugs into the body using a simple diffusion or pump system. Hollow microneedles could be used to remove fluid from the body for analysis.
Microneedles are opening up new areas of medical opportunity such as highly targeted drug administration to individual cells, they are also opening a wide variety of metrology challenges which CEMMNT are perfectly positioned to provide solutions for.
Call us on 01509 635279 enquiry@cemmnt.co.uk
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