Abstract
In the present study, novel MRI compatible zirconium-ruthenium alloys with ultralow magnetic susceptibility were developed for biomedical and therapeutic devices under MRI diagnostics environments. The results demonstrated that alloying with ruthenium into pure zirconium would significantly increase the strength and hardness properties. The corrosion resistance of zirconium-ruthenium alloys increased significantly. High cell viability could be found and healthy cell morphology observed when culturing MG 63 osteoblast-like cells and L-929 fibroblast cells with zirconium-ruthenium alloys, whereas the hemolysis rates of zirconium-ruthenium alloys are <1%, much lower than 5%, the safe value for biomaterials according to ISO 10993-4 standard. Compared with conventional biomedical 316L stainless steel, Co–Cr alloys and Ti-based alloys, the magnetic susceptibilities of the zirconium-ruthenium alloys (1.25 × 10−6 cm3·g−1–1.29 × 10−6 cm3·g−1 for zirconium-ruthenium alloys) are ultralow, about one-third that of Ti-based alloys (Ti–6Al–4V, ~3.5 × 10−6 cm3·g−1, CP Ti and Ti–6Al–7Nb, ~3.0 × 10−6 cm3·g−1), and one-sixth that of Co–Cr alloys (Co–Cr–Mo, ~7.7 × 10−6 cm3·g−1). Among the Zr–Ru alloy series, Zr–1Ru demonstrates enhanced mechanical properties, excellent corrosion resistance and cell viability with lowest magnetic susceptibility, and thus is the optimal Zr–Ru alloy system as therapeutic devices under MRI diagnostics environments.
Highlights
Further enhance the microhardness and wear resistance[16]
In the present work, we tried to optimize the best addition content for element Ru using Zr–Ru binary alloy models with various Ru content (0.5 wt.%, 1 wt.%, 2 wt.%, 3 wt.%, 5 wt.% and 10 wt.%), and based on the experimental results, it can be seen that: (1) For the mechanical property consideration, the Ru content should be lower than 2 wt.% for Zr–Ru alloys; With the addition of Ru alloy element, both the strength and hardness of Zr–Ru alloys were significantly enhanced compared with that of pure Zr
For the Zr–Ru alloys containing higher Ru content, a significant elongation decrease was observed, which might be attributed to the appearance of ω phase and the RuZr precipitate, which generally bring about destructive effect on the ductility and toughness of biomedical alloys as biocompatible materials and therapeutic devices[19]
Summary
Further enhance the microhardness and wear resistance[16]. According to the Zr–Ru binary phase diagram[17], which indicates that the solubility of Ru in the Zr matrix is 12 wt.% (β phase) and 1 wt.% (α phase) respectively. When exceeding the solubility, RuZr intermetallic would separate out. Zr–Ru alloys with various Ru alloying element content were designed and fabricated for novel biomedical Zr alloys with ultralow magnetic susceptibility, enhanced mechanical properties, improved corrosion resistance, excellent biocompatibility and MRI compatibility. The as-cast alloys were further undergone cold deformation and annealing treatment in order to further modify the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of the Zr–Ru alloys
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