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Evaluation of Microstructure, Corrosion, and Surface Properties of Plasma-Assisted Oxy-Nitrided Ti–6Al–4V Alloy

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Abstract

The use of titanium alloys in medical applications has always been controversial due to their corrosion properties. Ti–6Al–4V alloy is usually used due to its good mechanical properties. The poor corrosion properties of this alloy are mainly due to the formation of vanadium oxide, which is soluble in acidic solutions. In this study, to improve corrosion and surface properties and passive behavior, Ti–6Al–4V alloy was plasma-assisted oxy-nitrided in the gas mixtures of 30%N2 + 70% O2, 50% N2 + 50% O2, and 70% N2 + 30% O2 at 450, 500, and 550 °C temperatures for 2, 5, and 8 h. The effect of process temperature, time, and gas mixture on different characteristics of the samples was investigated. Multi-phase surface layers were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). It was found to increase surface roughness and hardness by the oxy-nitriding process slightly. With increasing process time and temperature up to 8 h and 500 °C, the surface hardness reached 676.1 Vickers in comparison with the untreated sample (139.8 VH). Also, the surface roughness increased from 23.57 to 49.82 nm for 8 h-450 °C-N2/O2 = 50/50 sample. Results showed higher resistance to corrosion of the samples treated by glow discharge assisted. The most polarization resistance to corrosion was related to sample 8h-550 °C-N2/O2 = 30/70 with a numerical value of 1892.78 Kohm cm2 Due to the formation of complex TiNxOy and TiN, which was increased compared to the untreated sample with polarization resistance of 1.01 Kohm cm2.

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The authors declare that they have no funding or financial investment from any person(s) or institution(s). Also, the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Atefeh Badr

  2. School of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Hossein Aghajani & Omid Abbaszadeh

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  1. Atefeh Badr
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  2. Hossein Aghajani
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  3. Omid Abbaszadeh
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AB has conducted the experiments during her MSc thesis. HA was the supervisor of the thesis and helped in English writing and editing. OA helped in data processing and developing the discussion section.

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Correspondence to Hossein Aghajani.

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Badr, A., Aghajani, H. & Abbaszadeh, O. Evaluation of Microstructure, Corrosion, and Surface Properties of Plasma-Assisted Oxy-Nitrided Ti–6Al–4V Alloy. J Bio Tribo Corros 10, 27 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40735-024-00832-6

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