Porous Titanium for Biomedical Applications Produced Using Coarse Titanium Powder via the Space Holder Technique

Abstract:

Due to its low density, high strength to weight ratio, and been unreactive to the human body, titanium is commonly used in human bone implants. Titanium in bone implants can be used in its porous form because the porosity reduces the elastic modulus of the implant, near to that of human cortical or trabecular bone, which prevents the effects of stress-shielding. To date, majority of the published studies using the space holder (SH) method to produce porous titanium, utilized-45 μm titanium hydride dehydride (Ti-HDH) powder, or similar titanium powder. However, there is limited research conducted on the use of coarse titanium powder particles, such as-150 μm Ti-HDH powder to produce porous titanium. Fine Ti-HDH powders are known to have higher oxygen content than coarse Ti-HDH powders, thus the specimens produced from fine powders are harder, require higher compaction pressures and are expected to have lower impact resistance. The following study thus investigated the use of-150 μm Ti-HDH powder to produce porous titanium specimens, by the SH method. The porous specimens of 45 mm diameter were produced by uniaxially compacting mixtures of sodium chloride (NaCl) powder and Ti-HDH powder at 500 MPa. The NaCl powder utilized was hand sieved to a range of-500 μm. The specimens were sintered at 1150 for 4 hours in a high-vacuum tube furnace. Three porosity levels were investigated i.e. 40%, 50% and 60%. The sintered compacts were assessed for density, porosity and elastic moduli. It was found that the sintered porosity of the specimens ranged from 42.7-59.1%, and the sintered density ranged from 1.84-2.58 g/cm³. The elastic moduli of the specimens were found to reduce as the porosity increased, and ranged from 0.59-1.3 GPa, which is similar to the elastic moduli of human trabecular bone. The use of-150 μm Ti-HDH powder is thus potentially a lower cost alternative, than the use of-45 μm Ti-HDH powder, to produce porous titanium for human bone implants.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 1009)
• Pages: 69-77
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-yZ2vMw
• Online since: March 2025
• Authors: Anthony Govender*, Moses Kiliswa
• Keywords: Implant, Porous, Space Holder, Titanium

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