High performance implantable textiles

High performance implantable textiles include implants, grafts, sutures, prosthetics and medical devices. The human body is an extremely well-designed and constructed structure, surpassing any machine that man has thus far been able to make. Its complex system and organisation is governed by an 

Non-biodegradable implants, such as silicones, ceramics, titanium, steel, carbons, polyesters and the like, are meant to stay in the body for fife. Their role is often to support or enhance endurance under high static or cyclic load-ing/unloading or other repetitive expansive/contractive motions. However, some implants need to be removed after they have rectified a malfunction or disorder in bodily functions. Historically, there exists a lot of evidence supporting the use of implantable materials in the body however, their systematic use really took off from the late 1800s, when aseptic without microorganisms techniques were adopted as standard practice (Encyclopaedia, 2007). In the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, the use of metals 

Poly-beta-hydroxybutyric acid (PBHBA) UHMWPE 

Trimethylene carbonate (TMC) PEEK Polyurethanes Ceramics Silicone 

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Specialty polymers achieve very high performance and find limited but critical use in aerospace composites, in electronic industries, as membranes for gas and liquid separations, as fire-retardant textile fabrics for firefighters and race-car drivers, and for biomedical applications (as sutures and surgical implants). The most important class of specialty plastics is polyimides. Other specialty polymers include polyetherimide, poly(amide-imide), polybismaleimides, ionic polymers, polyphosphazenes, poly(aryl ether ketones), polyarylates and related aromatic polyesters, and ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (Fig. 14.9). 

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