Fabrication of Porous Stainless Steel 316L for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Porous metals are very attractive materials for biomedical application as the physical and mechanical properties of these materials can be tailored similarly to the natural bone. In this work, porous stainless steel 316L has been fabricated by foam replication method. This method offers a lot of advantages including of easy processing technique, very economic, does not involve the use of toxic chemical and capable of producing porous structure that almost similar to natural bone. The porous stainless steel 316L (SS316L) samples were prepared by varying the SS316L composition from 40 wt% to 60 wt%. Sintering process was carried out at 1250°C in a vacuum furnace. The microstructure and pore size were observed and determined through Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Archimedes method was used to measure the samples density, while compression test was carried out to determine the compressive strength and elastic modulus. The average pore size for samples with 50 wt% and 60 wt% SS316L are 268μm and 299μm respectively. Samples with 40 wt% SS316L experienced the largest shrinkage which is 33% while the sample with 60 wt% SS316L experienced the smallest shrinkage which is 21%. The density and porosity of the porous SS316L with 50 wt% SS316L are 0.43g/cm3 and 93.6% respectively, and for porous SS316L with 60 wt% SS316L are 0.69 g/cm3 and 89.2% respectively. The modulus of elasticity and compressive strength for porous SS316L with 60 wt% SS316L are 0.46 GPa and 56 MPa respectively. All these properties are in the range of the natural bone properties. Besides, the cytotoxicity test showed that this porous SS316L does not have a cytotoxic potential for biomedical implant.