Safety of white corundum powder in medical device polishing
Walk into any medical device polishing workshop and you can hear the low hum of the machine. Workers in dust-proof suits are working hard, with surgical forceps, joint prostheses, and dental drills glowing coldly in their hands – these life-saving devices cannot avoid a key process before leaving the factory: polishing. And white corundum powder is the indispensable “magic hand” in this process. However, in recent years, with the exposure of several cases of workers’ pneumoconiosis, the industry has begun to re-examine the safety of this white powder.
1. Why is it necessary to polish medical devices?
For “deadly” products such as surgical blades and orthopedic implants, surface finish is not an aesthetic issue, but a life-and-death line. A micron-sized burr may cause tissue damage or bacterial growth. White corundum micropowder (main component α-Al₂O₃) has the “hard power” of 9.0 on the Mohs hardness scale. It can efficiently cut metal burrs. At the same time, its pure white characteristics do not pollute the surface of the workpiece. It is especially suitable for medical materials such as titanium alloy and stainless steel.
Engineer Li from a certain equipment factory in Dongguan said honestly: “I have tried other abrasives before, but either the residual iron powder was returned by customers or the polishing efficiency was too low. White corundum cuts quickly and cleanly, and the yield rate has directly increased by 12% – hospitals will not accept joint prostheses with scratches.” More importantly, its chemical inertness hardly reacts with equipment. 7. It avoids the risk of chemical contamination introduced by polishing, which is crucial for products that come into direct contact with the human body.
2. Safety concerns: the other side of white powder
While this white powder brings process advantages, it also hides risk points that cannot be ignored.
Dust inhalation: the number one “invisible killer”
Micropowders with a particle size of 0.5-20 microns are very easy to float. Data from a local occupational prevention and treatment institute in 2023 showed that the detection rate of pneumoconiosis among workers who were exposed to high concentrations of white corundum dust for a long time reached 5.3%. 2. “Every day after work, there is a layer of white ash in the mask, and the sputum coughed up has a sandy texture,” said a polisher who did not want to be named. What’s more difficult is that the incubation period of pneumoconiosis can be as long as ten years. The early symptoms are mild but can irreversibly damage lung tissue. 23.
Skin and eyes: the cost of direct contact
Micropowder particles are sharp and may cause itching or even scratches when they get on the skin; once they get into the eyes, they can easily scratch the cornea. 3. An accident report from a well-known equipment OEM factory in 2024 showed that due to the aging of the protective goggles seal, a worker got dust into his eyes when changing the abrasive, resulting in corneal abrasions and a two-week shutdown.
3. Risk control: Put “dangerous powder” in a cage
Since it cannot be completely replaced, scientific prevention and control is the only way out. Leading companies in the industry have explored multiple “safety locks”.
Engineering control: Kill dust at the source
Wet polishing technology is rapidly gaining popularity – mixing micro powder with aqueous solution into grinding paste, the amount of dust emission drops by more than 90%6. The workshop director of a joint prosthesis factory in Shenzhen did the math: “After changing to wet grinding, the replacement cycle of the fresh air fan filter was extended from 1 week to 3 months. It seems that the equipment is 300,000 more expensive, but the saved occupational disease compensation and production suspension losses will pay for themselves in two years.” The local exhaust system combined with the negative pressure operating table can further intercept the escaping dust2.
Personal protection: the last line of defense
N95 dust masks, fully enclosed protective glasses, and anti-static jumpsuits are standard equipment for workers. But the difficulty in implementation lies in compliance – the workshop temperature exceeds 35℃ in summer, and workers often take off their masks secretly. For this reason, a factory in Suzhou introduced an intelligent respirator with a micro fan, which takes into account both protection and breathability, and the violation rate has dropped significantly.
Material upgrade: safer micro powder is born
The new generation of low-sodium medical white corundum (Na₂O<0.1%) has less impurities and more concentrated particle size distribution through deep pickling and airflow classification. 56. The technical director of an abrasive company in Henan Province has demonstrated a comparative experiment: 2.3μg/cm² of aluminum residue was detected on the surface of the instrument after polishing with traditional micro powder, while the low-sodium product was only 0.7μg/cm², far below the ISO 10993 standard limit.
The position of white corundum micro powder in the field of medical device polishing will remain difficult to shake in the short term. But its safety is not innate, but a continuous contest between material technology, engineering control and human management. When the last free dust in the workshop is captured, when the smooth surface of each surgical instrument is no longer at the expense of workers’ health – we really hold the key to “safe polishing“. After all, the purity of medical treatment should start from the first process of manufacturing it.
English
Русский
日本語
한국어
Español
Tiếng Việt
Deutsch
Français
Italiano
Português
