Porous Titanium Implants Fabricated by a Salt Bath Sintering Process for Bone Repair Applications

Abstract

A salt bath sintering method was developed for fabricating porous titanium constructs that potentially could be used as implants in bone repair. Advantages of the method include low-cost fabrication, control of the porosity and pore size, and ease of fabricating anatomically relevant shapes. Mixtures of titanium and sodium chloride (salt) particles were compacted to form a cylindrical shape, and sintered for 2 hours in a salt bath at 1200 °C. After dissolution of the salt, porous titanium constructs with controllable porosity in the range 36 to 65% and pore sizes of ~30 um to ~200 um were obtained. The compressive strength and elastic modulus of the cylindrical constructs decreased from 216 to 36 MPa and from 9.8 to 1.8 GPa, respectively, with an increase in the porosity from 36 to 65%, and showed an exponential dependence on the porosity. The porous constructs supported the proliferation of murine MLO-A5 cells (an osteogenic cell line), showing their cytocompatibility. Prototypes of a porous Ti insert that could be used to augment the fixation of femoral and tibial stems in total joint arthroplasty were produced to show the applicability of the process.

Meeting Name

Biomaterials Science: Processing, Properties and Applications IV - Materials Science and Technology 2013 Conference and Exhibition (2013: Oct. 27-31, Montreal, Canada)

Department(s)

Materials Science and Engineering

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

9781118995204; 9781118995204

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1042-1122

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2014 American Ceramic Society, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2014

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