Enhanced Biocorrosion Resistance and Cellular Response of a Dual-Phase High Entropy Alloy through Reduced Elemental Heterogeneity

Gopinath Perumal; Harpreet Singh Grewal; Mayur Pole; L Vinod Kumar Reddy; Sundeep Mukherjee; Harpreet Singh; Geetha Manivasagam; Harpreet Singh Arora

doi:10.1021/acsabm.9b01127

Enhanced Biocorrosion Resistance and Cellular Response of a Dual-Phase High Entropy Alloy through Reduced Elemental Heterogeneity

ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2020 Feb 17;3(2):1233-1244. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.9b01127. Epub 2020 Jan 30.

Authors

Gopinath Perumal¹, Harpreet Singh Grewal¹, Mayur Pole², L Vinod Kumar Reddy³, Sundeep Mukherjee², Harpreet Singh⁴, Geetha Manivasagam³, Harpreet Singh Arora¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201314, India.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas 76203, United States.
³ Centre for BioMaterials, Cellular and Molecular Theranautics, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, Tamil Nadu 632014, India.
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab 140001, India.

PMID: 35019324
DOI: 10.1021/acsabm.9b01127

Abstract

The leaching out of toxic elements from metallic bioimplants has serious repercussions, including allergies, peripheral neuritis, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease, leading to revision or replacement surgeries. The development of advanced structural materials with excellent biocompatibility and superior corrosion resistance in the physiological environment holds great significance. High entropy alloys (HEAs) with a huge compositional design space and outstanding mechanical and functional properties can be promising for bioimplant applications. However, microstructural heterogeneity arising from elemental segregation in these multiprinciple alloy systems is the Achilles heel in the development of next-generation HEAs. Here, we demonstrate a pathway to homogenize the microstructure of a biocompatible dual-phase HEA, comprising refractory elements, namely, MoNbTaTiZr, through severe surface deformation using stationary friction processing (SFP). The strain and temperature field during processing homogenized the elemental distribution, which was otherwise unresponsive to conventional annealing treatments. Nearly 15 min of the SFP treatment resulted in a significant elemental homogenization across dendritic and interdendritic regions, similar to a week-long annealing treatment at 1275 K. The SFP processed alloy showed a nearly six times higher biocorrosion resistance compared to its as-cast counterpart. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to investigate the nature of the oxide layer formed on the specimens. Superior corrosion behavior of the processed alloy was attributed to the formation of a stable passive layer with zirconium oxide as the primary constituent and higher hydrophobicity. Biocompatibility studies performed using the human mesenchymal stem cell line, showed higher viability for the processed HEA compared to its as-cast counterpart as well as conventional metallic biomaterials including stainless steel (SS316L) and titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V).

Keywords: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; biocompatibility; biocorrosion; elemental segregation; refractory high entropy alloys; stationary friction processing.