Debinding study of injection molded CoCrMo alloy powder using palm based binder system

Abstract

Injection molding of CoCrMo materials was developed in order to investigate the processing characteristics of injection molding of CoCrMo alloy for medical applications. The processing technique was based on or modified from the used of 316L stainless steel. This study is concentrated on microstructures evaluation during debinding. The feedstock was injection molded using vertical injection molding machine and the following debinding processes were done by solvent extraction to remove palm stearin (PS) in heptane at 60oC for 5 hours prior to thermal pyrolysis at 450oC to decompose the polyethylene (PE).