The University of Leeds is using Nanosight's Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) system for the study of wear debris generated in orthopaedic implants.
Dr Joanne Tipper of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, studies nanoparticle-size polymer debris, specifically polyethylene generated first in vitro (to prove its presence) and then in vivo (from tissue from around failed hip replacements).
The objective is to characterise/size the particles and consider their bioactivity and effect on cell responses.
Tipper has made measurements on different materials used for implants (metal-metal, ceramic-ceramic and polymer-polymer).
She has had good results on model metal and ceramic particle systems.
The metal nanoparticle-debris are typically in the range of 20-80nm, which is particularly suited to NTA when compared to light scattering methods.
The NTA results compare well with high resolution FEG-SEM and these particles compare well with clinically generated wear debris.
NTA is much easier to use than SEM, requiring minimal sample-preparation time and providing results in minutes.
When studying polymers, NTA produced excellent results for polyethylene particles in the 100-800nm range, again when compared to FEG-SEM.
