Tribocorrosion behaviour of additively manufactured β-type Ti–Nb alloy for implant applications

Abstract

β-type Ti–Nb alloys are promising materials for load-bearing implant applications with improved mechanical biofunctionality and biocompatibility. In this work, the electrochemical and tribo-electrochemical behaviour of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) produced β-type Ti–42Nb alloy processed via Gaussian and top hat laser was investigated and compared with commercial grade β-type Ti–45Nb and α+β-type Ti–6Al–4V ELI. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization experiments were performed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) for corrosion behaviour. Tribocorrosion behaviour was studied under open circuit potential (OCP) conditions in PBS by using a reciprocating pin-on-disk tribometer. The passivation nature of the LPBF alloys is more decisive than the microstructural particularities for electrochemical behaviour. The overall corrosion response is similar due to the protective nature of the passive films formed on Ti alloys. Ti–6Al–4V ELI exhibits the best corrosion performance among all tested alloys with lower corrosion and passivation current density values. However, LPBF-produced alloys exhibit less reactive surfaces with better passive film properties compared to Ti–45Nb. In addition, EIS results revealed that passive film resistance values are higher for LPBF-produced alloys than conventionally produced Ti–45Nb. LPBF-produced alloys exhibit better tribo-electrochemical behaviour compared to Ti–45Nb. The differences in volume loss are mainly attributed to the microhardness of the alloys and the volume loss is dominated by mechanical wear. The alloys produced with LPBF show promising corrosion and tribocorrosion performance to be a potential candidate for load-bearing implant applications.