Liquid silicone rubber, or LSR, is a popular material for healthcare products and devices. It’s a safe option for caregiver and patient handling or use, and it offers superior purity, strength, resistance capabilities, and compatibility with the sterilization processes that are critical to medical cleanliness standards.
At Jefferson Rubber Works, Inc., we offer LSR injection molding to rapidly create high-performance components for clients in the medical sector and more. Read on to learn about LSR and its advantages to help you determine whether it’s ideal for your medical application.
What Is Liquid Silicone Rubber?
A type of inorganic polymer, liquid silicone rubber is composed of such elements as silicon, hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Siloxane, which is made with oxygen and silicon, forms the foundational chemical chain for LSR. The siloxane bond is largely responsible for LSR’s overall mechanical strength, versatility, and performance characteristics, as this inorganic backbone makes the material well-suited to organic chemical combination and nonreactive to biological materials.
Throughout the curing procedure, manufacturers add catalysts to develop crosslinks, which are chemical bonds that form between the siloxane backbones and enhance LSR’s properties. While one common rubber-curing catalyst is peroxide, LSR uses another — platinum — as its curing agent. Platinum-cured silicone rubbers tend to be more advantageous than their peroxide-cured counterparts, delivering the following:
- Enhanced clarity
- Superior tensile and tear strength
- Greater consistency
- Lack of peroxide-based residue
Liquid Silicone Rubber Properties
Safety is paramount in the medical sector, and LSR’s exceptional biocompatibility lends the material to ideal uses in the industry. LSR is a highly stable material option, given its mechanical properties and chemical resistance abilities. This durable yet flexible material is highly resistant to the heat, chemicals, and cleaners to which medical applications might expose it. LSR offers high thermal stability, holding up well against temperatures ranging from -76 °F to 482 °F (-60 °C to 250 °C), and it’s also electrically insulative.
LSR’s moldability enables us to form it into diverse shapes while minimizing material waste. In liquid form during molding, LSR easily fills every crevice of the mold cavity, allowing our team to create medical parts with intricately detailed designs. As LSR is transparent, we can even add your preferred coloring, helping the material better match a patient’s skin tone.
Benefits of Using Liquid Silicone Rubber in Medical Applications
LSR offers several key advantages for medical products like internal and external prosthetics and implants, syringe stoppers, catheter seals, pumps, flow control valves, diaphragms, lab and diagnostic equipment, and much more. These benefits include:
- Physical and chemical resistance capabilities. LSR resists aging, oxidation, corrosion, and degradation, being able to withstand substances ranging from moisture to chemicals. The material’s structure also minimizes the growth of bacteria on its surfaces, and it offers good thermal stability.
- Compatibility with sterilization processes. A particular benefit for medical applications, it’s possible to sterilize LSR using multiple techniques. You can heat products consisting of LSR within an autoclave, utilize e-beam or gamma radiation for sterilization, or disinfect with ethylene oxide gas.
- Biocompatibility. Not only is it soft enough to make comfortable components for patients’ long-term use, but LSR with medical-grade silicone is typically safe for direct contact with the human body as it’s biocompatible and chemically inert.
- Material purity. Compared to alternate elastomers, silicone offers superior purity. It’s devoid of plasticizers and other organic additives that might otherwise leach into a product or patient.
- Flexibility. LSR’s flexibility allows fabricators like Jefferson Rubber to mold it into complex shapes. It’s a versatile material, ranging in hardness from 10 to 80 Shore A, and self-adhesive additives lend LSR the ability to form chemical bonds along with or in place of mechanical ones. We also have the option of combining flexibility with rigidity in LSR component designs, molding the rubber onto plastic or metal materials for products like housings.
Liquid Silicone Rubber Injection Molding From Jefferson Rubber Works
If you’re seeking a trusted injection molding services provider for a healthcare application, the Medical Products Group at Jefferson Rubber has the experience, resources, and skilled staff necessary to produce custom-molded LSR parts based on your unique specifications. Our ISO 13485:2016-certified company makes high-quality, contaminant-free LSR products for the medical industry, with Class 8 cleanroom molding capabilities. We emphasize precision, safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness in each of our medical projects.
From design assistance and prototyping to part finishing and assembly, the Jefferson Rubber team is here to help with turnkey services for your next LSR injection molding project. Contact us today, and we’ll connect you with one of our experts to discuss a potential collaboration.
High-quality plugs and stoppers are critical components for medical devices that depend on leakproof operation, such as tubing and catheters. That’s why medical-grade liquid silicone is a preferred choice for medical manufacturers seeking more effective and versatile sealing materials for their products. Liquid silicone rubber (LSR) in particular features the most important material properties to ensure full device functionality, zero leakage, and sterility.
Why Leakproof Plugs and Stoppers Are Crucial in Medical Equipment
To prevent fluid leaks and contamination, components such as tubing and catheters must maintain perfect seals. Even small leaks and contaminants could pose a great risk to patients, so medical manufacturers must comply with very strict industry standards for quality, sterility, and performance. Robust seals are also important to protect sensitive equipment from damage.
The Role of Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR)
Medical-grade silicone is one of the most effective choices for a variety of sealing applications. From a manufacturing standpoint, liquid silicone molding for medical parts enhances final product quality, consistency, and design complexity.
What Makes LSR Ideal for Medical Applications? (LSR)
LSR’s unique material properties make it ideal for medical applications:
- Biocompatible: Medical-grade liquid silicone is a biocompatible material, making it safe to use with bodily tissues and fluids.
- Temperature and chemical resistance: Liquid silicone rubber also features exceptional resistance to temperature extremes and a wide variety of chemicals, so the material can withstand intensive sterilization techniques.
- Elasticity: LSR’s high elasticity allows manufacturers to achieve tight, leakproof seals for medical stoppers and plugs.
The Benefits of Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) for Catheters and Tubing
Catheters and medical tubing often undergo rigorous handling, so it’s important to use a strong yet flexible material. Liquid silicone rubber creates tight seals and minimizes the risk of blockages, maintaining consistent delivery of fluids or medications. LSR is also durable enough to withstand high sterilization temperatures as well as the physical stresses of repeated insertion and use. These properties make LSR catheters and tubing the optimal choice for these applications where failure is unacceptable.
Advanced Manufacturing Techniques for High-Precision LSR Medical Components
State-of-the-Art Molding Technology
Jefferson Rubber Works (JRW) is at the leading edge of liquid silicone rubber molding technology. Our advanced rubber molding services achieve tight tolerance windows and superior product consistency. In an industry where lives depend on precision, we provide highly replicable medical-grade silicone molded parts that heed exact dimensional and design requirements.
Scalable Production for Large-Scale Medical Needs
To meet the increasing demand for high-quality medical seals, our manufacturing infrastructure centers around high-volume production. For every part produced, our rubber molding experts apply stringent quality controls to maintain product consistency even at a mass scale. As a reliable source for medical molding, we’ve earned the trust of medical device manufacturers seeking leakproof sealing solutions fully compliant with medical manufacturing standards.
Partner with Jefferson Rubber Works for Reliable Medical Sealing Solutions
The medical industry relies on leakproof, precision-engineered seals made with the highest-quality materials. For medical-grade liquid silicone rubber stoppers and plugs, turn to Jefferson Rubber Works. As an ISO 13485:2016 certified manufacturer, we are dedicated to supplying medical manufacturers with long-lasting, fully compliant rubber products. Whether you need LSR components for medical tubing, surgical instruments, or wearables, we can fulfill small to large order volumes to meet your specific requirements.
To learn more about our medical-grade silicone molding capabilities, Contact Us today.