EVANS CITY, PA, June 2, 2008 -- What does it take to create stainless steel parts for high-precision surgical devices? In the case of RealHand® high dexterity instruments - a new line of high-performance, laparoscopic surgical tools developed by Novare® Surgical Systems, Cupertino, California - the answer starts with small granules from BASF known as Catamold feedstock.

RealHand instruments are articulating laparoscopic devices that are designed to mirror a surgeon’s hand direction, enabling the surgeon to perform minimally invasive surgical procedures exclusively through the belly button, leaving the patient with no visible scar. According to Novare, the devices achieve a high level of dynamic dexterity with a surprisingly small array of complex stainless steel parts manufactured for Novare by Smith Metal Products, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Smith Metal Products produces the parts by Metal Injection Molding (MIM) - a process that combines the versatility of plastic injection molding with the strength and integrity of steel. The raw material for this process is BASF’s Catamold brand of metal injection molding feedstocks. Catamold is a blend of fine metal powders and proprietary thermoplastic binders that allows parts to be formed with standard plastic injection molding machines.

Two post-forming steps convert the molded piece to a near full-density metallic part. Although the MIM process is still gaining traction in some industries, Smith Metal Products has been working with BASF’s Catamold for more than 10 years and producing high-volume parts for a variety of applications, including medical devices, hand tools, sporting goods, automotive parts and military.

The Catamold portfolio consists of standardized grades of steel and stainless steel that ultimately yield alloys with nearly the same density and physical properties as corresponding grades of wrought metals. Metal injection molding is a manufacturing technique especially suited for highly featured steel parts with production quantities of more than 10,000 pieces per year.

“This application is a great example of chemistry and technology working together to solve a need,” said Mike Brown, Director of Sales and Marketing for Smith Metal Products. “Novare’s product development team quickly understood and took advantage of the design freedom offered by MIM. They were able to stay well within space limitations and meet their functionality requirements with fewer parts than expected. They were able to design for compact functionality by carefully selecting alloys for each part based on patient exposure, flexibility, hardness, yield strength and other needs.”

David Danitz, Vice President of Research and Development for Novare, said that MIM stood out as a process that could help the company achieve the design, performance and size objectives set for the RealHand technology. 

“While some manufacturing methods could have restricted our designs, metal injection molding allowed us to improve our designs by reducing part mass and volume while adding strength and features,” Danitz stated.

According to Mark Torgerson, BASF’s Business Development Manager for Catamold, the use of MIM to solve manufacturability or part-count reduction issues is growing rapidly especially when a standardized feedstock such as Catamold is used. 

Standardized feedstock results in consistent batch-to-batch quality, but also means projects can be moved from one MIM part producer to another without investing in a new mold, a common problem with proprietary feedstock formulations. 

RealHand and Novare are registered trademarks of Novare Surgical Systems.

Catamold is a registered trademark of the BASF Group.

Helping customers to be successful: At-a-Glance

• Customer: Smith Metal Products, Minneapolis, Minnesota. (www.mimparts.com)
• End use: RealHand® High Dexterity Instrumentation - laparoscopic surgical device manufactured by Novare® Surgical Systems, Cupertino, California. (www.novaresurgical.com)
• BASF product: Catamold® feedstock, a granulated mixture of powdered metal and thermoplastic binders for metal injection molding. (www.basf.com/catamold)
• Application: Metal Injection Molding (MIM), a metal forming process that uses standard plastics injection molding equipment to form a steel or stainless steel part. 
• Benefits:
  • According to Novare, RealHand instrumentation is designed to provide surgeons with greater precision and control for laparoscopic procedures.
  • MIM offers enhanced quality and reduced manufacturing cost to produce metal parts with complex geometries, and mechanical and corrosion properties comparable to wrought.
  • Catamold feedstock allows greater geometric complexities to be engineered into parts. More features can be designed on a smaller part.

BASF - The Chemical Company. We don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.®

BASF Corporation, headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, is the North American affiliate of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has more than 15,000 employees in North America, and had sales of approximately $16.4 billion in 2007. For more information about BASF’s North American operations, or to sign up to receive news releases by e-mail, visit www.basf.com/usa.

BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner, BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges, such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost €58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.