Foster Corporation

Welding although isn’t one of the most dangerous and hazardous jobs in the world, is not one of the safest. There are hazards in welding that are specific to the type of work it entails and over the years there have been a number of advances that have made the welding industry safer.

Compounds for medical device components that require high strength, yet cannot use metals or traditional reinforced plastics, have been introduced by Foster Corporation. The Nanomed MAX compounds, based on an alloy of meta-xylene diamine polyamide (MX nylon), are United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Class VI tested.

A proprietary additive system has been developed to help maintain consistent processing parameters of validated TPU based polymers and compounds. Foster Corporation, a leader in custom polymers for medical devices, now offers thermoplastic urethanes (TPU) with PureEase technology for improved extrusion processing control.

Foster Corporation now offers custom colored medical polymers in quantities as low as 25 pounds (11 kgs) within a two week lead time to support market demand for rapid prototype development.  These include formulations using pigments compliant with FDA requirements for use in applications that contact the human body for up to 30 days.

Foster introduces ProPell thermoplastic polyurethane and polyether block amide compounds for improved manufacturing and handling of medical catheters. These new compounds dramatically reduce tackiness and friction in soft, flexible polymers while maintaining other physical properties of the unmodified polymers.

Foster Corporation now offers nano-reinforced composites for minimally invasive devices, such as catheters, with reinforcement loadings up to 30% by weight. Nano-reinforced compounds with high filler loadings provide substantial increase in physical properties of the base resin while maintaining processability in thin wall components.

Foster Delivery Science now offers custom radiopaque PEEK compounds for use in long term orthopedic implants. A twin screw extruder within the company’s Class 7 cGMP clean room is designed to produce development PEEK compound batches as small at 5 lbs (2.27 kg) through production quantities.

Foster Corporation has added state-of-the-art extrusion compounding capacity for custom pre-coloured polymers used in Class I medical applications. The new line is designed to optimize pigment dispersion of challenging colours and polymers, and maximize throughput necessary to reduce compounding costs.