Assessing the degradation performance of ultrahigh-purity magnesium in vitro and in vivo

•The effect of impurities on Mg degradation is described.•Ultrahigh-purity Mg (Fe < 2.5 ppm) degrades very slowly with a rate of 10 μm per year.•High-purity Mg (Fe ≈ 37 ppm) degrades faster, in particular in the annealed state.•A novel hydrogen evolution test setup to measure in vitro degradation is presented.•The newly designed in vitro testing setup mimics the in vivo situation very well.

The biodegradation of ultrahigh-purity Mg (XHP Mg, Fe ≈ 2 ppm) was tested in vitro in NaHCO3/CO2-buffered simulated body fluid and in vivo in the femur of rats. The in vitro degradation rate, which was evaluated using an also here described newly designed hydrogen evolution testing setup, is with ≈10 ± 3 μm/y very low and shows very good agreement with in vivo data. The results for XHP Mg are also compared with in vitro tests on high-purity Mg (Fe ≈ 37 ppm) in the as-cast and annealed states. The less pure specimens exhibit significantly higher degradation rates due to the formation of Fe-containing precipitates during casting and annealing.

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