Bioactive grain refined magnesium by friction stir processing

Magnesium and its alloys are promising candidates for temporary implant applications due to their combination of mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradation. But higher degradation rate restricts their wider applications. Recently friction stir processing (FSP) has emerged as a promising tool to attain near surface fine grain structure in materials. In the present work commercial purity magnesium was processed by FSP to obtain fine grain structure and the effect of the grain refinement on the bioactivity was investigated. The microstructural observations were carried out at different locations of the processed regions, from an original grain size of 1500μm, grain refinement was achieved to a level of 6.2μm at the nugget zone. Microhardness was measured across the processed regions and improvement was observed at the nugget zone. Contact angle measurements were carried out to estimate the wettability of the material and the measurements indicate increased wettability due to the increased surface energy induced by grain refinement. For studying the bioactivity, the FSPed samples were immersed in simulated body fluids (SBF 5X) for different intervals of time. The phases formed on the samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) method, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive Xray (EDX) analysis. The phases on the samples after 72hr of immersion were confirmed as magnesium hydroxide, hydroxyapatite and magnesium phosphate by XRD. Controlled degradation due to formation of these phases was observed. FSPed samples have more deposition of Ca/P than non FSP samples which implies better control over the degradation. Hence grain refinement by FSP can be a simple technique to control the degradation of magnesium for temporary implant applications. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications.