Tantalum foams for orthopaedic applications

Description of the tech for sale

A method for obtaining Tantalum (Ta) foams through the powder metallurgy technique for trabecular bone implants has been patented and developed. Part-ners to further develop the system and/or to establish commercial agreements along with technical cooperation are sought. Tantalum porous systems, thus created, effectively promote their integration and invasion by the surrounding bone even in a complex quantitative and qualitative deficit of bone, with a defective contact of up to 5 mm wide. Their behavior is significantly better than those obtained with porous coatings of materials such as cobalt-chrome or titanium which have much more limited osteoconduction.

Specifications

The powder metallurgy (PM) technique that will be used to obtain Ta foams is the space holder method which is a fabrication process that can produce porous metal samples of greater porosity (60-80%). This method has advantages like adjustable porosity amount, pore shape and pore size distribution. The aim of this patent is to obtain open cells structures of Ta with a porosity greater than 60%, medium pore size (100-400 µm), interconnected pores and mechanical properties suitable for trabecular bone implants.

Main advantages of its use

• - Easy manufacture.- High degree of porosity (60-80%), high interconnectivity between pores and with a pore diameter greater than 100 µm allowing vascular invasion and bone inward.- With a specially roughened surface topography. - The Young’s modulus (0.5-2%GPa) is very close to that of subchondral bone, enhancing the mechanical biocompatibility.- High surface roughness in conjunction with a low elastic modulus cause fric-tion between the outer surface of the foam and the surrounding bone. It is ap-proximately 1.5 times greater than the friction produced by conventional mesh systems or with titanium or cobalt-chromium spherules, achieving an excel-lent primary stability of the implant.

Applications

• - Total hip prosthesis, knee, ankle and shoulder.- Intersomatic implants in the spine, cervical, thoracic and lumbar.

Additional information (attached documents)

• - tantalumfoams.pdf