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Study of the effect of Tantalum powder addition in a Ti-6Al-4V alloy, heat treated for biomedical applications

Abstract:

Titanium (Ti) alloys are of great interest in biomedicine for their excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility. Ti-6Al-4V alloy is the most used in the bioengineering area for the manufacture of orthopedic implants, however, due the cytoxicity of V, and phosphorus deficiency in blood and bones produced by the combination of Al ions with the inorganic phosphorus, it might consider the material as biologically unsafe for long exposure times. Tantalum (Ta), on the other hand instead, is an alloying element with excellent properties since it has been reported that this element promotes bone regeneration, without harmful effects. This research focused was focused on the study of the behavior of morphological, chemical, and mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy, with the addition of powder Ta, obtained from Cold Isostatic Pressure (CIP) chip shaping and powder metallurgy, which were later heat treated at 800 and 900ºC for 1 hour. The samples were characterized by Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with chemical analysis of X-ray dispersion (EDX), and Vickers microhardness (HV). Where it was obtained that the ideal composition for medical implants, according to the properties obtained, is up to 20%wt of Ta subjected to 900ºC for 1 hour.