Advances in Metallic Materials for Biomedical Applications

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Biobased and Biodegradable Metals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 February 2026 | Viewed by 353

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Avenida Bento Gonçalves, 9500, Porto Alegre 91540-000, Brazil
Interests: surface treatments; nanomaterials; biomimetics; corrosion; wear; biomaterials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Metallic materials have been used for a long time as biomaterials in medical applications such as prosthetics and implants to replace or restore the functionality of damaged or diseased biological tissues. These materials are subjected to very complex biological and structural environments within our bodies, requiring specific solutions for each application, such as surface modifications to optimize biocompatibility or prevent the formation of biofilms, the manufacturing of customized components, or even presenting controlled absorption over time.

With the rapid advancement in the development of new alloys, surface treatments and new methods of manufacturing metallic components for biomedical use, this Special Issue, ‘Advances in Metallic Materials for Biomedical Applications’, seeks to bring the state of the art in that field. Both reviews and articles are welcome. This Issue welcomes contributions in the fields of surface coatings and treatments, single-crystal alloys for implants, additive manufacturing, resorbable alloys, metal matrix composites, shape memory and high entropy alloys for biomedical applications.

Dr. Antonio Shigueaki Takimi
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • coatings
  • single-crystal implants
  • additive manufacturing
  • resorbable alloys
  • surface modifications
  • metal-matrix composites
  • high-entropy alloys
  • biomedical alloys
  • shape-memory alloys

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 7605 KB  
Article
Design of Novel Non-Cytotoxic Ti-15Nb-xTa Alloys for Orthopedic Implants
by Yasmin Monteiro Schumacher, Carlos Roberto Grandini, Gerson Santos de Almeida, Willian Fernando Zambuzzi and Pedro Akira Bazaglia Kuroda
Metals 2025, 15(11), 1201; https://doi.org/10.3390/met15111201 - 28 Oct 2025
Viewed by 203
Abstract
The objective of this study was to develop novel alloys of the Ti-15Nb-xTa system (x = 0, 10, 20, and 30 wt.%) and to evaluate the effect of tantalum addition on the structure, microstructure, hardness, and elastic modulus for biomedical applications. The ingots [...] Read more.
The objective of this study was to develop novel alloys of the Ti-15Nb-xTa system (x = 0, 10, 20, and 30 wt.%) and to evaluate the effect of tantalum addition on the structure, microstructure, hardness, and elastic modulus for biomedical applications. The ingots were produced using an arc melting furnace under a controlled argon atmosphere. Chemical composition analyses were performed using energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to determine the alloying element fractions and to conduct chemical mapping. The Thermo-Calc software (https://thermocalc.com/, 4 September 2024) was employed to predict the influence of Ta on the phase transformation temperatures. Structural and microstructural characterizations were performed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD patterns enabled the identification of the phases, the relative volume fractions, and the lattice parameters of the unit cells. As mechanical properties, Vickers microhardness and elastic modulus were measured. The results revealed that increasing Ta content decreased the β-transus temperature but increased the melting temperature of the alloys. Structural and microstructural characterizations indicated that the Ti-15Nb alloy consisted of α′ + α″ phases, Ti-15Nb-10Ta of α″ + β phases, Ti-15Nb-20Ta of α″ + β + ω phases, and Ti-15Nb-30Ta of metastable β phase. Hardness and elastic modulus results exhibited similar behavior: the alloy with the highest fraction of the α″ phase (Ti-15Nb-10Ta) displayed the lowest hardness and elastic modulus, whereas the alloy containing the ω phase (Ti-15Nb-20Ta) presented significantly higher values. Among the studied alloys, Ti-15Nb-10Ta stands out due to its low elastic modulus (57 GPa). In vitro cellular assays demonstrated that Ti-15Nb-Ta alloys promote osteoblast proliferation while exhibiting no cytotoxicity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Metallic Materials for Biomedical Applications)
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