Germany-based Traceless Materials offers an alternative to single-use, fossil-based plastics thanks to its biobased and home compostable plastics. With special technology developed by the Hamburg-based startup, residues from the agricultural industry are turned into film, rigid packaging and coatings.

SPT Vilecon said it has begun expanding the range of injection mold prototyping with silicone, metal, and ceramic materials to provide medical device manufacturers with an even wider selection of product development and verification services.

Medical device manufacturers are tasked with developing elaborate test protocols to ensure that the product in development is safe and meets essential requirements. If these tests are conducted late in the development process, the more onerous and risky they become. SPT Vilecon often works with silicone, a material that is extensively used in medical applications because of its chemical resistance, mechanical performance, and biocompatibility. However, silicone parts are notoriously difficult to prototype and test, since most grades need to be injection molded to achieve their full performance potential, said the company. FIM enabled SPT Vilecon to offer an alternative to a customer developing an intravenous (IV) silicone product — the use of 3D-printed tooling to perform early design and material verification at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods.

Traceless Materials do not require industrial composting conditions for biodegradation, but are compostable at home under natural conditions, as well as being competitive in quality and functionality with conventional plastics and bioplastics.

Certified to ISO 13485, Denmark-based SPT Vilecon describes itself as a fully integrated provider of development and manufacturing services to the medical device industry. It offers in-house tool making and injection molding along with other manufacturing services to companies in northern Europe.

Design input collected from the first tests was integrated in a second iteration that took only a couple of hours to complete. By contrast, conventional metal tooling would have taken more than six weeks to design and procure, and the adjustments needed for the second iteration would have taken an in-house tool-shop a week to complete.

The patented FIM process uses high-speed Nexa3D printers and xMOLD resin to print injection molding tools that are compatible with thousands of off-the-shelf injection molding materials, including reinforced high-performance feedstocks. The process reduces design, iteration, and validation cycles using end-product materials to a matter of hours rather than weeks.

The two founders Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare aim to make the “trace-less” technology scalable by combining the former's PhD in process engineering with the latter's entrepreneurial and business development knowledge.

The 3D-printed molds for the first and second iterations cost less than €2,000 combined. And the technology enabled a two-day design cycle, which is more than 90% faster than conventional metal tooling.

Based on input collected from the first two iterations, the design of the silicone part was approved and manufacturing of a metal tool was initiated with full confidence of part moldability and performance. The in-house tool shop built the final metal tooling in four weeks without iterations.

Freeform Injection Molding technology from Nexa3D compresses design, iteration, and validation cycle times into a matter of hours rather than weeks.

Robust and valid prototyping and verification are key to minimizing cost, time, and risk factors in developing medical devices, said SPI Vilecon. FIM is a new toolbox for medical device companies seeking to accelerate their innovation and obtain early verification of part performance and moldability, added the company.

Winner of the Green Alley Award 2021, the innovative, patent-pending technology aims to use natural biopolymers such as plant residues from the agricultural industry to produce next-generation granular solutions and give rise to biobased and circular materials.

SPT implemented Nexa3D’s Freeform Injection Molding (FIM) technology to help customers shorten time-to-market on complex medical devices in demanding medical-grade materials and to expand on the range of materials that can be quickly and reliably used in prototyping and early device test manufacturing.

Injection-molded silicone parts were produced within two days, allowing early verification of key design and performance aspects.

Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

Last December, the company launched its first pilot product in collaboration with the clothing chain C&A. It consists of traceless hangers, designed to be used over and over again in stores. After the different stages of use, the hangers can be placed in household compost, or alternatively in the organic waste bin, where they will degrade just like natural materials within a few weeks. The sock hangers, produced in a limited edition and available in the C&A Store in Hamburg, prompted the company to process the granulated material through injection molding together with manufacturing partner CompriseTec.

A supplier of development and manufacturing services to medical device OEMs used Freeform Injection Molding from Nexa3D to accelerate time-to-market and slash prototyping costs for a complex silicone-based IV device. SPT Vilecon explained the process in a recent press release.

Germany-based Traceless Materials offers an alternative to single-use, fossil-based plastics thanks to its biobased and home compostable plastics. With special technology developed by the Hamburg-based startup, residues from the agricultural industry are turned into film, rigid packaging and coatings. Home compostable plastics Traceless Materials do not require industrial composting conditions for biodegradation, but are compostable at home under natural conditions, as well as being competitive in quality and functionality with conventional plastics and bioplastics. Winner of the Green Alley Award 2021, the innovative, patent-pending technology aims to use natural biopolymers such as plant residues from the agricultural industry to produce next-generation granular solutions and give rise to biobased and circular materials. Pilot product: the C&A sock hangers Last December, the company launched its first pilot product in collaboration with the clothing chain C&A. It consists of traceless hangers, designed to be used over and over again in stores. After the different stages of use, the hangers can be placed in household compost, or alternatively in the organic waste bin, where they will degrade just like natural materials within a few weeks. The sock hangers, produced in a limited edition and available in the C&A Store in Hamburg, prompted the company to process the granulated material through injection molding together with manufacturing partner CompriseTec. The two founders Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare aim to make the “trace-less” technology scalable by combining the former's PhD in process engineering with the latter's entrepreneurial and business development knowledge. Website:www.traceless.eu Sector:Biobased plastic Plus:Granular solution using plant residues from food production Characteristics:Technology for developing home compostable materials, including liners, films, and rigid packaging Image: Traceless Materials © copyright reserved