Corrosion behavior of Ti-13Nb-13Zr alloy used as a biomaterial

Abstract

Titanium alloys were developed as an alternative to stainless steels and have been extensively used as biomaterials ever since. One of these alloys is Ti-13Nb-13Zr (TNZ), a near-beta phase alloy containing elements with excellent biocompatibility. The main advantage of the TNZ alloy, compared to other titanium alloys, such as Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-7Nb, widely used as biomaterials, is its low elasticity modulus, closer to that of bone, and the absence of aluminum and vanadium, which have been reported to cause long-term adverse effects. In this paper, the corrosion and electrochemical behavior of TNZ alloy (as cast and after oxygen charge) was studied in a PBS solution. The results showed that, with the oxygen load, there is a significant reduction of the anodic current in almost the whole potential spam explored in this work, meaning that the corrosion rate decreases when the doping is performed. (C) 2008 Elsevier BY. All rights reserved.