The BoneFix team at MINES St Etienne have just published a paper in the Journal of Materials Research and Technology. Titled “Toughening and strengthening of visible light-cured hydroxyapatite thiol-ene resin composite intended as bone fixation using 2D textile” the paper describes how the hydroxyapatite/polymer fixation patch composite used in BoneFix can be reinforced with layers of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fiber meshes. Previous studies at KTH have shown the advantages of including PET meshes in the thiol-ene based composite fixation patch technology, but the impact of the meshes had not been fully mechanically characterized until this latest paper. Tensile and bending testing, micro-computed tomography and Raman spectroscopy showed that there was good impregnation of the PET mesh with the thiol-ene resin composite. The presence of the mesh did not affect the high energy visible light curing process and the mesh increased the energy to fracture of the fixation patch.
The main author of the paper, PhD student Guillaume Patt-Lafitte, said that “the woven conformation of the PET mesh, which allows for frictional sliding behavior, resulted in a load support after failure of the matrix.” He also stated that in the context of hand fractures, this loading support from the mesh could “contribute to fewer post-surgical complications related to the breaking of the composite material.” The paper was supervised by Professor David Eglin and is available open access from Elsevier (doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2024.01.127).
