Enhancement of wear and corrosion resistance of low modulus β-type Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3) dental alloys through thermal oxidation treatment

•Thermal oxidation treatment is performed on Zr-20Nb-xTi alloys.•High surface hardness and good bonding are obtained.•Chemical stability in artificial saliva is distinctly improved.•Zr-20Nb-3Ti alloy reveals superior wear resistance than Ti.•Elastic modulus increases after thermal oxidation treatment.

In order to obtain material with low elastic modulus, good abrasion resistance and high corrosion stability as screw for dental implant, the biomedical Zr-20Nb and Zr-20Nb-3Ti alloy with low elastic modulus were thermal oxidized respectively at 700 °C for 1 h and 600 °C for 1.25 h to obtain the compact oxidized layer to improve its wear resistance and corrosion resistance. The results show that smooth compact oxidized layer (composed of monoclinic ZrO2, tetragonal ZrO2 and 6ZrO2-Nb2O5) with 22.6 μm-43.5 μm thickness and 1252-1306 HV hardness can be in-situ formed on the surface of the Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3). The adhesion of oxidized layers to the substrates is determined to be 58.35-66.25 N. The oxidized Zr-20Nb-xTi alloys reveal great improvement of the pitting corrosion resistance in comparison with the un-oxidized alloys. In addition, the oxidized Zr-20Nb-3Ti exhibits sharply reduction of the corrosion rates and the oxidized Zr-20Nb shows higher corrosion rates than un-oxidized alloys, which is relevant with the content of the t-ZrO2. Wear test in artificial saliva demonstrates that the wear losses of the oxidized Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3) are superior to pure Ti. All of the un-oxidized Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3) alloys suffer from serious adhesive wear due to its high plasticity. Because of the protection from compact oxide layer with high adhesion and high hardness, the coefficients of friction and wear losses of the oxidized Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3) alloys decrease 50% and 95%, respectively. The defects on the oxidized Zr-20Nb have a negative effect on the friction and wear properties. In addition, after the thermal oxidation, compression test show that elastic modulus and strength of Zr-20Nb-xTi (x = 0, 3) increase slightly with plastic deformation after 40% of transformation. Furthermore, stripping of the oxidized layer from the alloy matrix did not occur during the whole experiments. As the surface oxidized Zr-20Nb-3Ti alloy has a combination of excellent performance such as high chemical stability, good wear resistance performance and low elastic modulus, moderate strength, it is considered an alternative material as dental implant.