Abstract
The powder metallurgy (PM) technique has been widely used for producing different alloy compositions by the addition of suitable reinforcements. PM is also capable of producing desireable mechanical and physical properties of the material by varying process parameters. This research investigates the addition of titanium and niobium in a 316L stainless steel matrix for potential use in the biomedical field. The increase of sintering dwell time resulted in simultaneous sintering and surface nitriding of compositions, using nitrogen as the sintering atmosphere. The developed alloy compositions were characterized using OM, FESEM, XRD and XPS techniques for quantification of the surface nitride layer and the nitrogen absorbed during sintering. The corrosion resistance and cytotoxicity assessments of the developed compositions were carried out in artificial saliva solution and human oral fibroblast cell culture, respectively. The results indicated that the nitride layer produced during sintering increased the corrosion resistance of the alloy and the developed compositions are non-cytotoxic. This newly developed alloy composition and processing technique is expected to provide a low-cost solution to implant manufacturing.
Highlights
The use of austenitic 316L stainless steel (SS) as a biomaterial can be traced back to the distant past for producing implants and medical devices
The relative density of pure 316L stainless steel samples was 95.88% of the theoretical density of 7.90 g/cm3 and was the highest among all the formulations developed
The results indicate that the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) for pure 316L stainless steel samples was found to be 572.5 MPa, which was the maximum among all the formulations studied in this research
Summary
The use of austenitic 316L stainless steel (SS) as a biomaterial can be traced back to the distant past for producing implants and medical devices It all started with development of medical implants for patients with advised surgeries including total hip replacement [1,2]. This research has attempted to further accelerate this technique for developing the alloy composition and the surface nitride the layer of implant material with an aim to minimize the ionic leaching of nickel and other elements This has been achieved by enhanced sintering dwell time under a nitrogen atmosphere. Niobium has gained considerable attention due to its enhanced properties and potential use in biomedical applications [31,32,33] The addition of these reinforcements has been selected so as to maintain the austenitic structure of the developed compositions. The sintering parameters have been selected so as to create a surface nitride layer on the developed compositions
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