Development and Characterization of Novel Alloys Containing Titanium, Molybdenum and Manganese for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Due to excellent biocompatibility and corrosion resistance of titanium alloys, their application in the area of orthopedic and dental implants has gained strength since 1970. However, the Young's modulus of these alloys is still about 2 to 4 times higher than the human bone. The most widely used titanium alloy for biomedical applications is the Ti-6Al-4V, however, previous studies showed that vanadium cause allergic reactions in human tissue and aluminum has been associated with neurological disorders, always in the long time. Hence, to work around this problem, new titanium alloys without the presence of these elements are being developed, with the addition of different elements, usually the ²-stabilizers, which can change its microstructure and mechanical properties, and may make the titanium and its alloys, most promising for use as biomaterial. The most promising are the alloys that have niobium, zirconium, molybdenum and tantalum as alloying elements, added to titanium, but the cost of these elements is very high. Manganese can be a strong candidate as an alloying element for the development of new ²-type titanium alloys, due to their abundance and low cytotoxicity. The main objective of this project is to prepare and characterize new alloys of Ti-Mo-Mn system, aiming biomedical applications. The alloys will be designed using Molecular Orbital theory and will be obtained by arc-melting and chemical, structural, microstructural and mechanically characterized, with the purpose of better understanding the relationship of microstructure and properties the alloys. In titanium alloys, both the substitutional element as thermos-mechanical treatments have strong influence on structure and properties of alloys. Thus, this project also aims to evaluate the effect of substitutional elements in the structure, microstructure, some selected mechanical properties (hardness and elastic modulus), in addition to the biocompatibility of prepared alloys. In parallel, this project also aims to investigate the influence of heat treatment and mechanical processing, on the structure, microstructure and selected mechanical properties of the prepared alloys.