Alex Silvestre, INEOS Styrolution global director for healthcare, explains how material choice helps adapt to a sustainable world.
INEOS Styrolution
Styrenics have been a proven material solution in the development of various medical devices. Over the years, the versatility of these materials has helped meet the needs of an ever-changing landscape.
In 2020, as the world was learning how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, styrenics were used as foundational building blocks in development of applications to make test kits, treatment for patients, and help protect our front-line healthcare professionals with PPE.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are now routinely focused on two major topics: 1) How can we bring costs down as the world struggles with containing inflation, and 2) what solutions are available to help us meet our sustainability objectives?
Opportunity to lower costs
With the desire to drive down their own manufacturing costs, design engineers have been more open to evaluating alternate materials. It begins with properly identifying the physical attributes necessary for the end application vs. simply trying to match an incumbent material’s unique characteristics.
This provides the opportunity to realise potential cost savings by selecting a material that is more appropriately suited for the end task instead of using one that may be over-engineered for the target application and more costly to produce.
There is a wide breadth of products within the styrenic portfolio each with their own set of distinct performance characteristics. Most design engineers are already quite familiar with products such as polystyrene (PS) or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) since both resins are readily used in a variety of labware and/or device housings. However, there are also a variety of transparent products, such as styrene methyl methacrylate (SMMA), styrene butadiene copolymer (SBCs), and other impact modified clear resins.
When properly aligning to the end technical requirements, many of these materials have successfully replaced incumbent materials in applications such as syringe bodies, insulin device parts, cryogenic devices, and medical packaging components while also achieving a cost savings initiative.
In fact, beyond potential raw material savings, many manufacturers have also lowered costs due to the density advantage of some products and/or utility consumption reductions related to some materials requiring a much lower processing temperature.
Supporting a sustainable world
Like other industries, the healthcare community is focused on achieving carbon footprint reduction objectives within the coming 10-20 years. The challenge has been how to meet these needs while still complying with the stringent traceability requirements indicative of this heavily regulated market space.
The use of bio-attributable feedstocks in the upstream production of key raw materials that are eventually converted to styrenic polymers is one option being explored. By replacing some of the components of the polymer raw material stream with a non-fossil fuel-based component, the overall product carbon footprint (PCF) of the styrenic polymer is reduced while still retaining the same physical and chemical attributes.
Another area where the styrenic industry is investing heavily is in the development of advanced recycling technologies. This involves collecting post-consumer waste and breaking down the components on a molecular level to re-create virgin feedstock like styrene monomer. In this circular economy concept, waste products are not just re-used, rather they are reborn into new finished goods.
In both technologies above, since the underlying chemical composition is maintained, medical device OEMs have assurances that the resulting styrenic polymers possess the same bio-compatibility, regulatory, and technical attributes.
Mechanical recycling options are also available. In these cases, a controlled waste stream of post-consumer products are collected, and then materials such as PS and ABS are identified, cleaned, and ground up. These materials are then dry-blended back in with virgin material so that they can be re-used.