The Effect of Exposure to Simulated Body Fluids on Breakdown Potentials

• Published in: Journal of materials engineering and performance Vol. 18; no. 5-6; pp. 754 - 759
• Main Author: Warner, Clifford P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2009; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Austenitic stainless steels; Biological; Breakdown; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Corrosion and Coatings; Engineering Design; Heat resistant steels; Intermetallics; Materials Science; Medical; Nickel base alloys; Nickel titanides; Quality Control; Reliability; Safety and Risk; Shape memory alloys; Surgical implants; Tribology; corrosion testing; material selection; biomaterials
• ISSN: 1059-9495; 1544-1024
• DOI: 10.1007/s11665-009-9404-z

Current methods to evaluate the corrosion resistance of small medical implants are typically based on short-term in vitro tests. While the duration of these tests is kept to a minimum to make it feasible to evaluate a large number of samples in a reasonable time, these methods do not account for the long-term changes that can occur in the oxides of metals exposed to biological fluids. Given other electrochemical changes to these materials with time in solution, it is a reasonable question to consider whether breakdown potentials are a fundamental parameter of a material and surface condition. Data on 316L and nitinol wire samples, and nitinol stents, show that breakdown potentials increase with time in solution up to 28 days. The difference between the breakdown potential and rest potentials either increased or exhibited no change.