Development of an equiatomic octonary TiNbTaZrMoHfWCr super-high-entropy alloy for biomedical applications

Abstract

A super-high-entropy alloy (SHEA) with ΔSmix ≥ 2.0R (where R is the gas constant) was designed to produce metallic materials with superior mechanical properties to conventional alloys. As an alternative to conventional quinary high-entropy alloys (HEAs), herein, octonary SHEAs for biomedical applications (BioSHEAs) are proposed for the first time, and the TiNbTaZrMoHfWCr BioSHEA was fabricated. Arc-melted BioSHEA exhibited an extremely high yield strength of 1953 ± 84 MPa, which was approximately 550 MPa higher than that of the quinary TiNbTaZrMo BioHEA. This yield strength is considerably higher than that estimated by the rule of mixtures for pure metals, confirming the achievement of significant solid-solution strengthening induced by a supermulticomponent solid solution composed of elements with different atomic radii. Its biocompatibility was comparable to that of pure Ti and the quinary BioHEA, and superior to that of SUS316L. This study demonstrates the validity of a novel entropy-based guideline for increasing the mixing entropy to achieve metallic materials with ultrahigh strength.