Densification and Mechanical and Antibacterial Properties of Low-Cost Powder Metallurgy TiCu Intermetallic Alloy as a Potential Biomedical Material

Antibacterial Ti–Cu implants: A critical review on mechanisms of action

“…This activity was explained by down-regulation of the gene expressions related to the bacterial adhesion and acid production. In early articles in the field, the release of copper ions was considered the underlying mechanism of such antimicrobial activity [ [212] , [213] , [214] ]. Wang et al.…”

“…In fact, researchers held two misconceptions in justifying the antibacterial mechanisms of Ti–Cu implants by considering the ion-releasing mechanism as the only mechanism for the antibacterial properties of Ti–Cu alloy. The first group suggested that the ions released from the solid solution phases [ 165 , 212 , 213 , 215 ] are responsible for antibacterial activity. It means a microstructure containing a high ratio of solid solution can release more copper ions than a microstructure comprising a high ratio of intermetallic phases, and consequently, it is expected that the former possesses a stronger antibacterial activity than the latter.…”

“…Also, the schematic of how the microstructure of Ti–Cu implants is effective in the antibacterial properties is illustrated in Scheme 5 . It was reported that the formation of a high fraction of intermetallic phases of Ti 2 Cu rather than the solid solution not only increases the antibacterial efficacy of the implants but also decreases the risk of cytotoxicity so that the Ti–57Cu with fully intermetallic microstructure exhibited excellent cell viability to MG-63 osteosarcoma cells [ 212 ]

Fig. 7 SEM images from different microstructures formed by various heat treatments and the corresponding antibacterial activities observed in the plate counting test.

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