The standards and requirements for hygiene in hospitals and certainly for surgeries need te match to the highest quality standards possible. Before an operation starts, a sterilized tray with surgical instruments is being prepared.
This high quality polymer is already often being used for medical applications. The sterilization trays however are mainly made of metal.
Solvay Specialty Polymers. located in the U.S. has asked Promolding to design sterilisation cases and trays using “Radel” polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) instead of stainless steel or aluminium.
The production volume of these trays is very low and also the sizes are diverging. With the injection molding technology of Promolding, it is possible to upscale the production volume easily.
The polymer researchers and product developers of Promolding started with analyzing and the user environment and interviewing all the stakeholders. In the sterilization room, the trays are being rinsed, cleansed and than sterilized. Eventually the trays will come out of the oven and packed sterile including a new set of medical instruments for the surgery.
Thanks to the field research, the product developers became familiar with the program of requirements and the needs and were able to develop several product designs. These designs differ from a standard sterilization tray till a revolutionary model. The designs of Promolding were also based on the market demand where these trays are being seen as a ‘commodity’ product.
The findings and and lessons learned were shared and discussed with Solvay and the first designs were presented. Promolding presented 2 modular concepts based on an adjusted injection molding technology. Promolding also presented the cost calculation for both presented concepts.
Solvay and Promolding decided to manufacture protoypes of both moldular concepts which are being tested bij Solvay in the market.
The steralization tray made of PPSU has proven to be a perfect replacement for the existing and currently used steralization trays. Solvay was very happy with this result. The only ‘point for improvement’ seemed to be the fact that during the drying process of the tray, a little bit of moisture remains but that is solved by adjusting the process.
The price is very competitive compared to the metal version and the quality is very high.