Hi Reader, today we’re talking about biomaterials.
As a little Christmas special, I'd like to take you on a small journey today.
Because what is currently tested in the medical field can teach us a lot about what more sustainable materials might look like.
First, however, I want to give a big shout-out to Nourhan Hassan, who inspired this piece and worked on it with me.
Now, let’s see what innovations could await us in the near future:
Today's Lesson: Innovations In Materials
About biomaterials and their sustainability
Number Of The Day
In 2024, the WHO estimated that 16 billion injections are administered globally each year. While it is estimated that 90% of medical device waste consists of single-use items (leading to more than 5 million tons of medical waste produced every year in the U.S. alone) only 15% is believed to be biohazardous. As a result, several more sustainable innovations are trying to enter the market.
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Biomaterials And Their Sustainability
Biomaterials might represent a long-awaited solution for drug delivery and surgical treatment - both for humans and even our lab rodents.
Mahdi et al. provide a clear overview of biomaterials and the different ways to classify them. In many senses, the healthcare industry is a step ahead of the sciences when it comes to material innovations. That means understanding the sustainability of biomaterials informs us about the principles behind greener material innovations used in laboratory items.
They entail a wide range of substances engineered to interact safely with living tissue.
> This means that the “bio” refers to their interaction, not their origin.
Therefore, titanium also qualifies as a biomaterial - lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and capable of fusing well with bone, making it ideal for orthopedic and dental implants.
In other words, biomaterials can range from metals to plastics and from natural materials to synthetic ones.
This also explains why biomaterials are used in everything from tissue scaffolds and joint replacements to drug delivery systems.
Now consider that the medical plastics market alone was valued at $46.11 billion in 2021, with a projected annual growth rate of 7.5% through 2030.
These huge amounts of spending go along with a significant amount of waste. Although the WHO only estimates 15% to be biohazardous, often waste is discarded without proper separation - similar to problems we face in the lab.
That means there is a lot of potential and much need for more sustainable alternatives…
The Green Side of Biomaterials
The biomaterials of interest for us come mostly from biological sources and therefore offer better biodegradability.
An exciting example is collagen. It can be derived from bovine hide or fish waste.
This is a graphic from Furtado et al. who describe how collagen from fish is sourced and used, while Wagermaier and Fratzl provide a deeper dive into collagen in the book "Polymer Science: A Comprehensive Reference"
Since collagen is the most common protein in the human body, it can be safely absorbed without requiring surgical removal.
This, in turn, means lower environmental impacts due to avoided follow-up procedures.
Of course, it saves a significant amount of time and resources if materials do not have to be removed, not least because it reduces the risk of complications (and infections) that accompany any manipulation.
Another interesting material in this class is chitosan.
As Mawazi et al. and Ul-Islam and colleagues discuss, it is derived from crustacean shells and has antimicrobial properties.
However, we also meet our old friend polylactic acid (PLA), often made from biological sources and with improved degradability.
This and this paper provide a great overview of the application of PLA in the medical field. Importantly, as a synthetic biomaterial, PLA offers comparatively high design flexibility [10, 11]. On the lower right, you see PLA plates from Green Elephant.
While its use in medicine is developing, we already see lab items such as plates made from it.
However, while these advantages are interesting for how we deliver drugs or design lab items, we need to look at the bigger picture.
When "Bio" Doesn’t Mean "Green"
While PLA is generally made from sugarcane or cornstarch - often leading to overall carbon footprint reductions - its production still requires significant land and water use.
Islam et al. provide a highly detailed life-cycle assessment of PLA sourcing and production, comparing sugarcane- and microalgae-based feedstocks. DAP stands for diammonium phosphate, which, together with urea, is among the most commonly used fertilizers. For clarity, lime, along with other chemicals such as phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid, is used to control pH and to restrain sucrose inversion during sugarcane juice clarification.
Moreover, the fermentation and polymerization processes involved in PLA production are far from clean.
When we move to materials like titanium, we can learn another important lesson.
We want to highlight its biocompatibility and durability, but titanium ore extraction and manufacturing are extremely energy-intensive - far more so than steel.
Still, companies such as PTSMAKE reportedly recycle almost all of the titanium they use.
Here, Tebaldo and colleagues visualize the steps of titanium recovery and recycling using the following color code: light blue = processes; light green = recyclable materials; green = waste recovery processes; light orange = non-recyclable materials; orange = recycling of low-quality materials; grey = products or raw materials; purple = waste purification processes.
That means, even though titanium wouldn't readily come to mind as a more sustainable alternative, under the right circumstances it can be.
Finally, collagen can be extracted from waste streams like fish skin, which sounds ideal.
However, producing medical-grade collagen requires energy-intensive purification, chemical processing, and sterilization.
Just because materials have a biological origin, doesn’t mean they are green when we consider their processing.
This graphic illustrates the factors that must be considered when developing more sustainable materials. The arrow for “use case” is inverted because this is often where development begins - we want a material that performs better. Under “properties,” this includes aspects of product design such as weight (which affects transport-related impacts) or safety (e.g., toxicity or radioactivity). Of note, End-of-life properties can often inspire the use of new materials i.e., sourcing.
Another challenge is that use cases strongly influence end-of-life treatment.
While materials with insufficient performance are not sustainable, considering other steps only after development also prevents real progress.
Adoption of greener materials is hampered because, although often biodegradable, after use, they are regularly classified as infectious or hazardous.
When it comes to medical waste, it must be considered that its treatment is regulated - Nematollahi et al. provide an excellent overview of medical waste treatment options. As shown in the figure on the left, transport and end-of-life treatment also incur costs; here, light-duty (LD), medium-duty (MD), and heavy-duty (HD) vehicles are compared. On the right, Shih et al. exemplarily planned a waste collection system in Tainan (a city in Taiwan), as shown on the map, which illustrates two alternative routes.
And even when not, according to the WHO, globally only 61% of hospitals have basic healthcare waste management systems, and in low-resource settings this number drops to just 25%.
Thus, even a biodegradable wound dressing will likely end up in high-temperature incineration once removed.
The lesson learned: sustainability depends on our technical capabilities.
Applying The Knowledge
Looking to the future of biomaterials - and, by extension, more sustainable lab items - we can identify five major challenges:
Higher Upfront Costs Solution: Given their longer lifetimes, fewer follow-up treatments like removals or cheaper end-of-life treatments, money can be saved long term.
Concerns About Quality Solution: Realizing that generally innovations have been tested and once they enter the market there is normally enough data to know where to use them.
Actual Footprints Solution: Here it truly needs our diligence to determine under which conditions a solution is truly more sustainable.
Lack Of Infrastructure Solution: Indeed, we might have to start separating waste or work with 3rd parties to establish appropriate end-of-life treatment.
Missing Procurement Inclusion Solution: Implementing sustainability as the other decision criterion to quality/performance
Nevertheless, innovations are on their way.
Now it’s on us to learn from the lessons already made and include these materials in our research and purchasing decisions.
How We Feel Today
References
Mahdi, M., et al., 2024. Classification of biomaterials and their applications. Journal of Port Science Research, 7(3), pp.281–299. doi:10.36371/port.2024.3.7281.
Meison Furtado, L., et al., 2022. Development of fish collagen in tissue regeneration and drug delivery. Engineered Regeneration, 3(3), pp.217–231. doi:10.1016/j.engreg.2022.05.002.
Ul-Islam, M., et al., 2024. Chitosan-based nanostructured biomaterials: Synthesis, properties, and biomedical applications. Advanced Industrial and Engineering Polymer Research, 7(1), pp.79–99. doi:10.1016/j.aiepr.2023.07.002.
Mawazi, S.M., et al., 2024. Recent applications of chitosan and its derivatives in antibacterial, anticancer, wound healing, and tissue engineering fields. Polymers, 16, 1351. doi:10.3390/polym16101351.
Yang, Z., et al., 2024. Medical applications and prospects of polylactic acid materials. iScience, 27(12), 111512. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.111512.
Khouri, N.G., et al., 2024. Polylactic acid (PLA): Properties, synthesis, and biomedical applications – A review of the literature. Journal of Molecular Structure, 1309, 138243. doi:10.1016/j.molstruc.2024.138243.
Islam, M.M., et al., 2025. Environmental footprint of polylactic acid production utilizing cane-sugar and microalgal biomass: An LCA case study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 496, 145132. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.145132.
Tebaldo, V., et al., 2024. Sustainable recovery of titanium alloy: From waste to feedstock for additive manufacturing. Sustainability, 16, 330. doi:10.3390/su16010330.
Nematollahi, H., et al., 2025. Medical waste management in the modern healthcare era: A comprehensive review of technologies, environmental impact, and sustainable practices. Results in Engineering, 28, 107210. doi:10.1016/j.rineng.2025.107210.
Demir, E., et al., 2011. A comparative analysis of several vehicle emission models for road freight transportation. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 16(5), pp.347–357. doi:10.1016/j.trd.2011.01.011.
Shih, L.-H., et al., 2003. Multicriteria optimization for infectious medical waste collection system planning. Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management, 7(2), pp.78–87. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)1090-025X(2003)7:2(78).
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