Assessment of Galvanostatic Anodic Polarization to Accelerate the Corrosion of the Bioresorbable Magnesium Alloy WE43

Abstract

In the field of surgery, bioresorbable magnesium is considered a promising candidate. Its low corrosion resistance, which is disadvantageous for technical application, is advantageous for surgery since the implant fully degrades in the presence of the water-based body fluids, and after a defined time the regenerating bone takes over its function again. Therefore, knowledge of the corrosion behavior over several months is essential. For this reason, an in vitro short-time testing method is developed to accelerate the corrosion progress by galvanostatic anodic polarization without influencing the macroscopic corrosion morphology. The initial corrosion rate of the magnesium alloy WE43 is calculated by detection of the hydrogen volume produced in an immersion test. In a corresponding experimental setup, a galvanostatic anodic polarization is applied with a three-electrode system. The application range for the polarization is determined based on the corrosion current density from potentiodynamic polarization. To correlate the initial corrosion rate, and accelerated dissolution rate, the corrosion morphologies of both test strategies are characterized by microscopy images, as well as energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The results demonstrate that the dissolution rate can be increased in the order of decades with the limitation of a changed corrosion morphology with increasing polarization. With this approach, it is possible to characterize and exclude new unsuitable magnesium alloys in a time-efficient manner before they are used in subsequent preclinical studies.

Keywords

• bioresorbable implants
• magnesium alloys
• WE43
• immersion test
• galvanostatic anodic polarization
• corrosion process