Oerlikon Metco launches two new medical AM materials

Oerlikon, a global technology and engineering group, has launched two new medical additive manufacturing materials under the Oerlikon Metco brand. Oerlikon Metco offers a wide range of metal powders that are rigorously designed, tested, and manufactured to meet the exacting standards of AM. The new materials are tailored for 3D printing medical components.

Titanium is biocompatible, lightweight, and extremely strong, making it an ideal material for dental and orthopedic implants. Titanium – 6 Aluminium – 4 Vanadium, also known as Ti 64, is a well-established and industry-approved alloy. Oerlikon’s MetcoMed Ti64 G23-C is specifically designed for medical applications, providing high load-bearing capacity, good ductility, excellent biocompatibility, and good corrosion resistance.

The material offers a tensile strength of over 1000 MPa at 10% elongation and has been optimized for 3D printing using the laser beam powder bed fusion (LB-PBF) process. It provides a direct drop-in feedstock solution for most LB-PBF machines.

Cobalt-Chromium alloys are widely used for various orthopedic and dental implants. In particular, Cobalt – 28 Chromium – 6 Molybdenum (CoCrMo) is one of the most used alloys for tooth implants and total hip replacement (THR) due to the alloy’s superior corrosion qualities, antibacterial properties, improved cell adhesion, and potential for reducing inflammation markers.

Oerlikon has developed and launched a CoCrMo material of the above basic composition for 3D printing with the LB-PBF process, providing high strength, excellent ductility, and biocompatibility for use in medical implants. The material, MetcoMed CoCrMo F75-A, provides a tensile strength of 1050 MPa and 35% elongation despite its low carbon content. The material exhibits a particle size distribution that allows it to be used on most powder bed fusion AM machines.

Both of these MetcoMed materials are available globally through the Oerlikon distribution network.