Survey of AZ31/HA-Zeolite Nano Crystalline Biocomposite with Powder Metallurgy (PM)

Magnesium is potentially useful for orthopedic and cardiovascular applications. Magnesium and its alloys are light, biodegradable, biocompatible metals that have promising applications as biomaterials. However, the corrosion rate of this metal is so high that its degradation occurs before the end of the healing process. One of the ways to improve the corrosion rate is to compose it with ceramic materials such as HA, TCP and so on. In this study, at first, the alloy with a nominal composition of Mg-3%Al-1%Zn (AZ31 alloy) was produced by high energy ball milling (HEBM) of Mg powder, Zn powder and Al powder under high purity argon. The ball milling parameters were chosen as following: shaft rotation was 600 rpm, ratio of balls to powder was 10:1 and milling time was 90, 180, 270 and 360 min under argon atmosphere. The obtained Mg alloy powders were pressed with different amounts of HA-Zeolite (HZ) powder mixture, weight ratio HA (Hydroxyapatite) to Zeolite 4:1, under 1000 MPa in steel die with 12 mm in diameter and 20 mm in height. The pressed samples were sintered for 1 h at 630 K in an inert atmosphere furnace. Microstructure characterization of as-milled powders and as-sintered alloys were carried out by SEM. An X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used for phase analysis. XRD patterns of the powders mixture showed that the AZ31 alloy powder has been gained after 270 min.