Porous titanium alloy/hydroxyapatite composite using powder compaction route

Abstract

Titanium alloys (Ti6Al4V) and hydroxyapatite (HA) are widely used as implant materials. Ti6Al4V has good mechanical properties and corrosion resistance, whereas HA has excellent biocompatibility but its mechanical properties are weak. The combination of properties between Ti6Al4V and HA is expected to produce a superior material for bio-implants. The aim of this work is to analyse the fabricating porous Ti6Al4V/HA composite through powder compaction with the application of two types of space holders. Sodium chloride (NaCl) and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) were selected as the space holder agents. Space holders were removed by solvent debinding (NaCl) and thermal debinding (PMMA). Sintering was performed in a furnace at 1200 °C for 1.5 h. The Archimedes method was carried out to obtain the porosity of the sintered body. Samples where NaCl was used exhibited higher porosity than the samples where for PMMA was used. The high porosity achieved among the successfully sintered samples was 43.9%. Interconnected porous was clearly observed on the sintered composites with a successfully generated size range of 2 μm to 25 μm.

Keywords

• titanium-hydroxyapatite foam
• space holder method
• powder metallurgy