Abstract

The success of the implants used for bone regeneration and repair is highly dependent on the cell material interaction, which is further influenced by interaction of body proteins with the implant materials. In this study, a novel nanostructured Zircaloy-2 has been developed using cold rolling (reduction of 25%, 50%. 75%, and 85%), which resulted in the refinement of grains by several orders of magnitude. Phase analysis was done using x-ray diffraction, and the microstructures of room-temperature rolled Zircaloy-2 were obtained using optical microscopy. The adsorption behavior of bovine serum albumin as a function of protein concentration on Zircaloy-2 was performed, and the wettability before and after protein adsorption on Zircaloy-2 samples was estimated by measuring the contact angle of a water droplet on the processed samples. Nanoindentation studies were performed, which indicated higher hardness (of 2.15 GPa) and reduced elastic modulus (47.4 GPa) when compared with that of as-received Zircaloy-2 (hardness of ~0.12 GPa and reduced elastic modulus of 5.6 GPa). Also, it was found that protein adsorption increases to 0.59 mg/cm2 for maximum deformed samples when compared with that of 0.38 mg/cm2 for as-received samples. Contact angle decreased with increasing reduction from 62° (of the as-received sample) to 44° (at a reduction of 85%). But after protein adsorption, a further decrease in the contact angle from 43° (as received) to 26° (for 85% reduction) was observed. Thus, the engineered cold rolling can allow tailoring the nanomechanical properties of Zircaloy-2 while rendering the required protein adsorption as potential implant material.

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