Carbon based coatings for orthopaedics -Tecvac

Tecvac Ltd provides new surface engineering solutions for metal-on-metal interactions in hip and knee implants and prostheses. This includes a new family of advanced ultra-low friction DLC coatings that ensure high biocompatibility, extreme stability and extended periods of free movement. Other Tecvac biomedical coatings include titanium nitride hard coatings, which have a successful extended clinical history of use by the orthopaedic community.

Tecvac's Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating offers very high levels of lubricity and has been specified by European consultants in orthopaedics. DLC coatings from Tecvac can be applied to advanced steels, titanium and other alloys for biomedical applications. Surfaces can have ultra-low friction coefficients in the region of 0.1, while providing surface hardnesses of up to 3000HV, which offers patients extended lifetimes and free movement for hip and knee replacements.

Tecvac's InnerArmorTM process coats internal surfaces of pipes, pumps and interior bores with DLC up to 50 microns. This process, applied at temperatures below 200°C, provides a corrosion-resistant, very hard film, up to 50 microns thick. Coatings are inert, biocompatible, and environmentally friendly, and reduce friction losses to very low levels on pipes, pumps and biological fluid control devices, to provide high levels of protection from erosion, scaling and fouling, and prevent adhesion by powders, particulates and slurries.

Tecvac's carbon coating facility at Cambridge allows a wide choice of metals, and organic compounds to be applied to metal, ceramic and polymeric substrates. These services and technologies support medical equipment and clinical applications in orthopaedics, cardiology and other medical sectors including knee, hip and other implants.

£500,000 EPSRC project at the University of Sheffield
Tecvac Ltd has designed and built a unique, world class surface engineering research machine for The University of Sheffield as part of a £500,000 EPSRC project.

Specifically designed for the Research Centre in Surface Engineering, led by Professor Allan Matthews (in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering) the new Tecvac IP70 machine uniquely combines two different Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) coating technologies in a single production scale vacuum chamber.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), it will be used both for fundamental research and for near-market applications in surface engineering, covering a range of ceramics, nano composite and glassy-metal plasma-based coatings - combined with a duplex substrate diffusion pre-treatment capability.
This will open up routes to new thin film and nano-scale processes which can support innovative medical and life science applications including tissue engineering.
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Project BERTI; (Biomedical implant with Exceptional Resistance to Tribo-bio-corrosion and with Inherent antimicrobial properties) is expected to lead to new designs of knee and hip implants and substantially reduce the number of costly revision surgeries for hip and knee replacement patients. Partners in the project include Corin Plc, Tecvac Ltd, Imperial College, University of London, Charing Cross Hospitals, Queen Mary College, University of London and the University of Sheffield.
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