| Issue |
MATEC Web of Conferences
Volume 33, 2015
ESOMAT 2015 – 10th European Symposium on Martensitic Transformations
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 06002 | |
| Number of page(s) | 4 | |
| Section | Other alloys | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/20153306002 | |
| Published online | 07 December 2015 | |
Electrochemical characterization of oxidized nanostructured superelastic Ti-Nb-Zr alloy for medical implants
1 National University of Science and Technology “MISIS”, Leninskiy prosp. 4, Moscow 119049, Russian Federation
2 École de Technologie Supérieure, 1100, Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal (Quebec), Canada H3C 1K3
a Corresponding author: zhukova@misis.ru (Dr. Yulia Zhukova)
Metastable Ti-Nb-based shape memory and superelastic alloys are known to be strong candidates for bone implant applications. The issues of the materials’ biochemical and biomechanical compatibility and its characterization are reviewed. Thermomechanical treatment is conventionally applied to these alloys in order to obtain supreme functional properties; the processing scheme comprises cold rolling and post-deformation air annealing. The structure and electrochemical characteristics of annealing-induced oxide films were studied by scanning electron microscopy, open circuit potential measurement and voltammetry. It is shown that the samples after the annealing treatment exhibit higher steady-state potential value and lower anodic dissolution current density in simulated biological solution, compared with the samples with mechanically removed oxide films. At the same time, the samples with thermal oxide films exhibited lower rate of passive layer recovery than those subjected to mechanical renewal of the oxidized surface. This fact underlies the recommendation to remove the annealing-induced oxide film from the implants operating under friction conditions.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.