Abstract
United Nations has estimated that 130 million people would suffer from osteoarthritis worldwide by 2050. This disease would require patients to undergo a surgery known as Total Hip Replacement (THR) which has a failure rate of approximately 1 % with a lifespan of 20 years. The biomaterials used to manufacture this total hip artroplasty are mainly made of Zirconia-Toughened Alumina. In this work, Zirconia Toughened Alumina (ZTA) composites with 10 vol% Y-TZP content were doped with small amount (0.01 to 1 wt%) of graphene oxide (GO). The GO-doped ZTA composites were produced via two-stage sintering with T1 ranging between 1400°C and 1550°C, heating rate of 20°C/min, followed by T2 of 1350°C and 12 hours holding time. The sintered ZTA samples were then evaluated on its microstructure and mechanical properties such as bulk density, Vickers hardness, Young’s modulus and fracture toughness to investigate the effect of GO addition on ZTA samples prepared via two-stage sintering. The results showed that ZTA composites containing up 0.1 wt% GO is beneficial in improving the microstructural and mechanical properties of ZTA composites prepared via two-stage sintering. The sample recorded a high hardness of up to 18.5 GPa, Young’s modulus of 406 GPa and fracture toughness of 5.8 MPam1/2 when sintered at T1 of 1450℃.
Highlights
Zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) composites is a composite material which consist of alumina as its primary phase and Y-TZP as its secondary phase [1]
Addition of more than 0.1 wt% graphene oxide (GO) were shown to be detrimental to the bulk density as drop in bulk density were observed in all samples regardless of T1
This is in agreements with the work of few researchers where decrease in bulk density observed in ceramics with higher amount of GO [23,28,29]
Summary
Zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) composites is a composite material which consist of alumina as its primary phase and Y-TZP as its secondary phase [1]. Y-TZP which known as yttria-tetragonal zirconia polycrystals, is a material which widely used in various applications in the industry do its excellent flexural strength, inertness and fracture toughness. Y-TZP suffers from properties degradation when exposed to hostile environments such as high humidity [2]. Alumina does not suffer to from properties degradation upon exposure to hostile environments and possesses high hardness. Alumina does suffer from a weakness which is low fracture toughness [3].
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