Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Nanomaterials
Volume
10
Issue
8
First Page
1
Last Page
12
Publisher
MDPI
School
School of Engineering
RAS ID
31987
Funders
European Research Council
Grant Number
K2-2020-020
Abstract
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Surface functionalization is an effective approach to change the surface properties of a material to achieve a specific goal such as improving the biocompatibility of the material. Here, the surface of the commercial biomedical Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy was functionalized through synthesizing of a porous surface layer by liquid metal dealloying (LMD). During LMD, the Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy is immersed in liquid magnesium (Mg) and both materials react with each other. Particularly, aluminum (Al) is selectively dissolved from the Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy into liquid Mg while titanium (Ti) and niobium (Nb) diffuse along the metal/liquid interface to form a porous structure. We demonstrate that the porous surface layer in the Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy can be successfully tailored by LMD. Furthermore, the concentration of harmful Al in this porous layer is reduced by about 48% (from 5.62 ± 0.11 wt.% to 2.95 ± 0.05 wt.%) after 30 min of dealloying at 1150 K. The properties of the porous layer (e.g., layer thickness) can be tuned by varying the dealloying conditions. In-vitro tests suggest improved bone formation on the functionalized porous surface of the Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy.
DOI
10.3390/nano10081479
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research Themes
Natural and Built Environments
Priority Areas
Engineering, technology and nanotechnology
Comments
Okulov, I. V., Joo, S. H., Okulov, A. V., Volegov, A. S., Luthringer, B., Willumeit-Römer, R., ... & Kato, H. (2020). Surface Functionalization of Biomedical Ti-6Al-7Nb Alloy by Liquid Metal Dealloying. Nanomaterials, 10(8), 1479. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10081479