Mechanical Properties and Biocompatibility of Porous Titanium Prepared by Powder Sintering

Porous Ti compacts were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) method and their Young's modulus and biocompatibility were investigated in this study. Ti powders were made from commercially available pure Ti (grade 2) using the plasma rotating electrode process (PREP) in an Ar atmosphere. Porous Ti compacts for biomedical applications were successfully fabricated in the porosity range from 5.1 to 39.2 vol%. Young's modulus of porous Ti compacts having porosity from 31 to 35 vol % is almost the same as that of human cortical bone. To investigate the biocompatibility of pure Ti, fibroblast-like L-929 and osteoblast-like MG-63 cells were cultured with the presence of the extract solution from pure Ti for 72 hours. The viabilities of cells cultured with the diluted extract solutions were almost the same compared to that of the control. Also, porous Ti compacts did not induce any morphologic damage of cells.