Porous Nb-Ti-Ta alloy scaffolds for bone tissue engineering: Fabrication, mechanical properties and in vitro/vivo biocompatibility

- Porous Nb-Ti-Ta alloys with 3D network structure were fabricated.
- The mechanical properties of porous Nb-Ti-Ta alloys could be tailored by porosity and pore structure.
- Nb-Ti-Ta alloys are quite promising as a new candidate of biomedical application.

Porous Nb-Ti-Ta (at.%) alloys with the pore size of 100-600 μm and the porosity of 50%-80% were fabricated by the combination of the sponge impregnation technique and sintering method. The results revealed that the pores were well connected with three-dimensional (3D) network structure, which showed morphological similarity to the anisotropic porous structure of human bones. The results also showed that the alloys could provide the compressive Young's modulus of 0.11 ± 0.01 GPa to 2.08 ± 0.09 GPa and the strength of 17.45 ± 2.76 MPa to 121.67 ± 1.76 MPa at different level of porosity, indicating that the mechanical properties of the alloys are similar to those of human bones. Pore structure on the compressive properties was also discussed on the basis of the deformation mode. The relationship between compressive properties and porosity was well consistent with the Gibson-Ashby model. The mechanical properties could be tailored to match different requirements of the human bones. Moreover, the alloys had good biocompatibility due to the porous structure with higher surface, which were suitable for apatite formation and cell adhesion. In conclusion, the porous Nb-Ti-Ta alloy is potentially useful in the hard tissue implants for the appropriate mechanical properties as well as the good biocompatible properties.