Investigation of biocompatibility and fabrication of Ti-based porous biomaterial

this PhD thesis study, atomic Ti-10Nb-10Zr alloy was fabricated with traditional sintering from powder metallurgy (PM) methods to be used as biomaterials. During the production period, high purity elemental Ti (titanium), Nb (niobium) and Zr (zirconium) powders were firstly mixed for 12 hours in a rotating container to form a homogeneous mixture, and then briquetted at different pressures by mixing with ammonium bicarbonate in order to make porous structure. The briquetted raw specimens were sintered at different temperatures in the argon atmosphere. Thus, porous Ti-10Nb-10Zr samples with a porosity in the range of 3.6% to 55.44% were produced. It was seen that different shaped pores were formed in the optical images of the produced samples and the porosity were decreased with the increasing briquetting pressure and sintering temperature. SEM-EDX and XRD analyzes of the samples showed that α (hcp) and β (bcc) phases were occured in the microstructures of samples, and the distribution of the phases became more homogeneous with increasing sintering temperature and briquetted pressure. The compressive tests of the samples showed that the compressive strengths increased with decreasing porosity, and their compressive strengthes were higher than that of bones. The corrosion resistance of the samples was better than that of pure Ti, also the corrosion resistance was increased when the microstructure was homogeny. Finally, in biocompatibility studies conducted in vivo, it was found that the increase of the porosity increased the formation of new bone and fibrous tissue and any tissue necrosis was not seen.