Proyectos I+D+i -Modalidades «Retos Investigación» y «Generación de Conocimiento». Convocatoria 2019.

Proyecto PID2019-109962RB-I00 financiado por MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033

Region: National

Project period: 2020 – 2023

Principal Investigator: Federico Sket (federico.sket@imdea.org)

Magnesium and its alloys, as promising biodegradable metallic biomaterials, have been extensively investigated for potential orthopedic applications. However, as hydrogen released from the corrosion of Mg is problematic in many medical applications, the corrosion rate of Mg and its alloys should be carefully controlled.

One of the approaches to control the corrosion rate is adding alloying elements to Mg. The addition of rare earth (RE) elements could improve both the mechanical strength and corrosion resistance. Among Mg-RE alloys, WE43 has been considered suitable for orthopedic implant applications, based on pre-clinical and human trials in recent decades. However, manufacturing Mg scaffold with conventional techniques is difficult if complex and fully interconnected porous structures in combination with adequate stiffness and strength are all required.

Recently it was possible to 3D print scaffolds of Mg alloys but their mechanical properties, the biodegradation behavior and their interdependence are not yet understood. Thus, the TOPOMAG-3D project aims at understanding the microstructure-topology-mechanical property relationships in a lattice structured Mg-alloy (WE43) produced by additive manufacturing for biomedical applications.

• This objective will be achieved by a thorough investigation of their mechanical and degradation behavior, including in-situ studies of their evolution during exposure to simulated body fluids (SBF).
• This knowledge can provide information about the critical microstructural and geometrical factors that control the strength and degradation of the lattice in the as-received condition and allow proposing suitable postprocessing treatments to improve these properties.
• In addition, the microstructural and geometrical information will be used to develop a numerical model to assess the influence of these factors on the mechanical response.
• The simulation tools will be useful for the design of new lattices with improved mechanical properties and for their future integration into mechano-regulation models of bone tissue growth and regeneration using Mg based porous scaffolds.