Compositional design and in vitro investigation on novel Zr-Co-Cu-Ti metallic glass for biomedical applications

Zr-Co-Cu-Al based metallic glasses (MGs) are potential material for making surgical equipment due to their ultra-high strength. However, presence of elemental Al in these alloys is not desirable due to biotoxicity. To counter this problem the present study is undertaken to design metallic glass forming composition by replacing Al with Ti. Design strategy adopted is based on thermodynamic modelling by rationalizing the effect of chemical enthalpy and atomic mismatch entropy along with statistically controlled atomic arrangement through configurational entropy. The rapid solidification technique was used to synthesize MG in melt spun ribbon form. The structural nature and glass stability of the ribbon are confirmed by X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Corrosion response of the MG is thoroughly investigated using potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in a simulated body fluid (SBF) environment. The mechanical property of MG is evaluated using microindentation technique. Improvement in corrosion resistance is observed in all the SBF solutions along with in vitro biocompatibility study using MG-63 cell viability experiment.

Automated summary

This study aims to design metallic glasses for surgical equipment by replacing toxic aluminum with titanium. By using thermodynamic modeling and statistically controlled atomic arrangement, the researchers successfully synthesized titanium-based metallic glasses with improved corrosion resistance and in vitro biocompatibility. Various characterization techniques were employed to analyze the structure, glass stability, and mechanical properties of the metallic glasses.