Frank Kirchner is a plastics engineer in Application Development of Ticona GmbH in Frankfurt/ Germany.

He studied Process Engineering at the technical college in Frankfurt.

In 1999 he started at Ticona as application engineer being responsible for projects in the Healthcare and Industrial area.

The development of innovative medical equipment has become inconceivable without the use of high-performance polymers.

For medical devices like surgical equipment and sterilisation containers an excellent resistance to common sterilization methods is required. This means steam sterilization at 134°C up to more than 500 cycles or radiation stability up to 1,500kGy in case of gamma or plasma sterilization.

Additionally biocompatibility according to USP and ISO standards as well as excellent chemical resistanco to disinfectants is recommended for materials used in this field of application.

Two classes of polymer being used in the development of new medical equipment, often as alternatives to metallic materials, are polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) and liquid crystal polymers (LCPs). These plastics are suitable for use in temperatures of up to 240°C and can easily withstand the usual steam sterilisation methods routinely used in clinical procedures. PPS and LCP can be used to produce functional parts with extraordinarily high dimensional stability, a complex structure and high mechanical strength. They are particularly suitable for injection moulding.

In the extrusion sector, unreinforced PPS grades are available for the manufacture of semi-finished products for further machining.