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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-020-04234-0 Ó 2020 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

TECHNICAL ARTICLE

Densification and Mechanical and Antibacterial Properties of Low-Cost Powder Metallurgy TiCu Intermetallic Alloy as a Potential Biomedical Material M.R. AKBARPOUR

1,3

and S. MONIRI JAVADHESARI2

1.—Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Maragheh, P.O. Box 55136-553, Maragheh, Iran. 2.—Department of Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran. 3.—e-mail: [email protected]

Ti-Cu intermetallic alloys are considered as a potential substitute for conventional dental cast alloys due to their enhanced mechanical, antibacterial, and biocompatibility behaviors. In this paper, the effects of sintering temperature on the densification, hardness, and antibacterial activity of a Ti-Cu alloy obtained by a solid-state reaction have been studied. The TiCu and Ti2Cu3 phases were identified as the major phases in the microstructure of the synthesized material. The high hardness of  1000 HV and high antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli were obtained for the Ti-Cu intermetallic alloy. The high hardness of the Ti-Cu alloy was attributed to its nanocrystalline grains, multi-phase structure and the large amounts of hard TiCu and Ti2Cu3 phases in the microstructure, and its antibacterial behavior was due to the release of Cu2+ ions around the sample in culture media of bacteria.

INTRODUCTION Ti-Cu alloys have attracted considerable attention due to their high strength and hardness, high wear resistance and antibacterial properties accompanied by biocompatibility behavior.1–7 Further enhancement in the mechanical properties of this alloy is attained by grain size refinement and changes of the alloying element percentage. Nevertheless, these fine/nano-structured alloys have high hardness, inducing difficulties in the preparation of bulk alloys.8, 9 Mechanical alloying/milling is one of the processing methods for the synthesis of intermetallic alloys specially Ti-Cu alloys which has been widely reported in many researches.2, 3, 10–12 Dey et al.10 prepared TiCu intermetallic material by 20min milling of elemental powders by a high-energy ball mill and then micropyretic/combustion synthesis. Their synthesized solid had a fine-grained microstructure, including the TiCu, Ti2Cu and TiCu4 phases. Shon et al.2 synthesized nanostructured TiCu powders by 10-h high-energy ball milling of elemental Cu and Ti powders using two different ball mills. They consolidated the synthesized powders by an induction sintering process and studied their mechanical properties. High hardness

and fracture toughness were obtained for the sintered TiCu. Ti-10 wt.% Cu alloy fabricated by Zhang et al. through ball milling (for 3–6 h), and then hot press sintering.3 Their synthesized Ti–Cu sintered alloy comprised a Ti2Cu phase and a Cu-rich phase, which significantly increased mechanical properties and slightly improved the corrosion resistance compared with