Artificial joints are becoming more popular as the world population ages and the number of young people with osteoarthritis rises. Correspondingly, the lifespan of joint materials is becoming more and more important. Biomaterials having superior mechanical, biocompatibility, and tribological qualities are required for long joint life. Due to their superior biocompatibility, high strength, good toughness, and corrosion resistance, Ti6Al4V alloys are widely employed as biomedical materials. However, Ti6Al4V artificial joint implants have low wear resistance, and the wear particles created during joint grinding can cause osteolysis and implant rejection.
Alfa Chemistry's alloy surface anti-friction coating is capable of resolving this issue. To improve the tribological properties of the bioimplanted material Ti6Al4V, we use a professional surface treatment procedure. Contact us if you need high-wear-resistance medicinal materials.
Why Do You Need An Anti-Friction Coating?
We offer anti-friction coatings on alloy surfaces that can be used to solve a range of problems in medical device applications. Here are some of the situations where our anti-friction coatings can help you improve the quality of your products.
- Your product material itself has poor abrasion resistance.
- Your products are subject to constant wear and tear particles.
- You need to protect the surface of your product.
- You want your products to have strong mechanical properties and a long service life
Suitable Medical Alloy Anti-Friction Coating Solution
For surface protection, Alfa Chemistry coats your Ti6Al4V alloy with a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating. DLC is frequently utilized in medical engineering due to its superior biological inertness, mechanical characteristics, and tribological qualities. It is vital to have high interfacial bonding adhesion between the DLC coating and the Ti6Al4V substrate in order to fully exploit the benefits of the DLC coating.
Surface texture offers competitive advantages in coating preparation, such as the capacity to create geometric textures with various morphologies, greater surface contact area, good adhesion interface, and coating mechanical locking ability. It is clear that this can enhance the Ti6Al4V substrate surface with DLC coatings Physicochemical bonding interface between layers.
Fig 1. Surface topography of DLC coatings worn by 316L steel balls. (Dong B. Z, et al. 2022)
After mechanical polishing, we performed a surface modification process of post-texturing carburizing on the Ti6Al4V substrate. Using a UV laser with a wavelength of 355 nm, this technique creates a dimple texture with a texture density of 30%. Laser carburization is accomplished through a surface alloying method that causes carbon paste to diffuse into the solid phase Ti6Al4V. The DLC coating was then placed on the surface of the pretreated Ti6Al4 V substrate using a DC pulsed magnetron sputtering method. The coating thickness is approximately 1.5 m as a result. Experiments have revealed that this DLC coating, which has been co-processed with laser texturing and carburizing, has low internal stress, good wetting, and enhanced friction qualities.
Reference
- Dong B. Z, et al. (2022). "Combined Effect of Laser Texturing and Carburizing on The Bonding Strength of DLC Coatings Deposited on Medical Titanium Alloy." Surface and Coatings Technology. 429(15): 127951.
