Perspex® Acrylic machining specialists Carville Plastics hold a long standing relationship with Perspex® acrylic having produced bespoke acrylic components since the 1930’s. Carville used Perspex® Acrylic sheet for the manufacture of aircraft canopies and windows during the 1940’s and now work at the cutting edge of precision machining in the medical, specialist industrial and high end consumer markets.
Innovation is the key to Carville’s success developing a range of niche manufacturing solutions to solve individual customer problems. In the 1960’s Carville developed a technique to diffusion bond sheets of Perspex® acrylic and in 1980 this technique was further developed for use in the manufacture of medical components.
Diffusion bonding is the process of bonding acrylic materials without the use of solvents or adhesives. Working with Corning Medical, who were seeking a more reliable way to process medical samples and reagents, Carville used their diffusion bonding techniques to develop and manufacture the world’s first diffusion bonded medical manifold. The manifold was used in a blood diagnostic application and utilised 2 sheets of 10mm Perspex® Clear Acrylic.
The process of acrylic machining and diffusion bonding enables design engineers to be more innovative when developing new products and systems. Manifolds can be produced with complex internal features such as flow paths, mixing cells and reservoirs that cannot be produced using conventional techniques.
Such was the success of the first bonded medical manifold that they have now become a standard across the industry. Carville have produced in excess of 1,000,000 Perspex® Acrylic manifolds for customers across Europe, Asia and the USA.
The medical applications that use diffusion bonding do not end with diagnostic manifolds. Carville produce a range of Quality Assurance Phantoms used for the calibration of medical X-ray equipment along with more complex pneumatic manifolds used in desk top dialysis machines. Carville continue to use Perspex® acrylic to push the boundaries of innovations, design and engineering.
For more information on Carville Plastics visit www.carville.co.uk.
Image reference:
Blood Gas Analyser - this manifold is populated with peristaltic pumps and valves. This is a 2 layer manifold and is used in blood gas (oxygen, nitrogen, etc) analysis.
12 Station Manifold - this is a seven layer bonded manifold used to automate the process of gene cloning.