The novel toxic free titanium-based amorphous alloy for biomedical application

Abstract

Ti based amorphous alloy exhibits excellent properties for biomedical applications. In general, it has high strength, low elastic modulus, good corrosion resistance and satisfactory biocompatibility. This work reported on a systematic study of a novel Ti44Zr10Pd10Cu6Co23Ta7, Ti44Zr10Pd10Cu10Co19Ta7 and Ti44Zr10Pd10Cu14Co15Ta7 metallic glass. Cylindrical rod samples with diameter of 5 mm and 20 mm length were fabricated by induction melting and casting into copper mold. The cast rod was then used as plasma cathode in filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) deposition chamber. The Ti-based metallic glass (MG) thin film was produced and tested for subsequent cell culture investigation to understand the biocompatibility nature of the new alloy. X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS) was employed to characterize the surface chemistry. The Ti–6Al–4V alloy was studied in parallel as a control material. This novel Ti-based MG composition has shown promising osteoblast biocompatible characteristics and no cytotoxicity on human osteoblast-like cells (SaOS-2). Moreover, cells on Ti-based MG thin film exhibited greater levels of calcium deposition using Alizarin red staining technique to those of the control. All results point out that the novel Ti-based amorphous alloy has potential for using as a new coating for biomedical application and deserve further study. Keywords: Ti-based amorphous alloy, Metallic glass, Toxic free, Filtered cathodic vacuum arc, X-ray photoelectron spectrometry, Biocompatibility