AAWSAP DIRD, Biomaterials, January 2010

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 7 January 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. The report reviews biomaterials used in medicine, including silicones, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, hydrogels, titanium, ceramics and tissue constructs, and applications such as stents, joints, contact lenses, drug delivery and dialysis. It concludes that most innovation lies in new ways to apply existing materials.

From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 1/7/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD is a broad survey of biomaterials, including metals, polymers, ceramics, glasses, and composites designed to interact with living tissue, and argues that their value depends mainly on biocompatibility, reliability, and careful matching of material properties to specific medical uses. The report reviews major application areas including biosensors, implants, cardiovascular devices, contact lenses, drug delivery systems, tissue constructs, titanium devices, and dialysis membranes, emphasizing that no single biomaterial works best in every setting. Its overall conclusion is that biomaterials are already foundational to a large medical-device industry and save or improve millions of lives, but that progress tends to be slow because safety testing is stringent; as a result, most advances come from improved ways of applying established materials such as silicone, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, ceramics, and titanium in new devices and clinical settings rather than from radically new substances.

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TEFLON
Biomedical materials must be inert to the complex chemistry of biological fluids so they
neither suffer nor instigate change in tissue. Teflon™ admirably fulfills these
requirements. Teflon is a trade name for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a
fluorocarbon-based polymer. It is made by free radical polymerization of
tetrafluoroethylene and has a carbon backbone chain in which each carbon has two
fluorine atoms attached to it.
This polymer is hydrophobic (water hating), biologically inert, and nonbiodegradable
and also has low friction characteristics and excellent "slipperiness." The chemical
inertness (stability) of PTFE is re lated to the strength of the fluorine-carbon bond that
makes it resistant to adhesion. Figure 8 shows the structure of this material. It is a long
chain of repeating chemical units, as shown in the right of the figure.
Figure 8. Teflon Structure
Goretex® is a medical form of Teflon (PTFE) that, when stretched and extruded,
entraps air cells in its microstructure much like foam does and, thus, is relatively soft
and repellant to most liquids. This material is known as e-PTFE (expanded PTFE).
PTFE can be fabricated in many forms, including pastes, tubes, strands, and sheets,
while ePTFE can be woven into a porous, fabric-like mesh. When implanted in the body,
th is strong mesh allows tissue to grow into its pores, making it ideal for medical devices
such as vascular grafts.
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