Yufeng ZHENG

Abstract

Biodegradable Metals 

Yufeng Zheng 1,* 

1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Peking University, No.5 Yi-He-Yuan Raod, Bejing 100871, China 

yfzheng@pku.edu.cn

After decades of developing strategies to minimize the corrosion of metallic biomaterials, there is now increasing interest in using intentionally corrodible metals in a number of critical medical device applications. A term “biodegradable metal”(BM) had been used internationally to describe these new kinds of degradable metallic biomaterials for medical application. In this talk, firstly the updated definition of BM and its classification are given, along with the summary of the degradation mechanisms of BMs and its environmental influencing factors, which includes the degeneration of mechanical integrity and the metabolism of the degradation products. Secondly, the dual criteria of biodegradability and biocompatibility have been proposed for BMs, and all metallic elements in the periodic table with accessible data have been screened based on these criteria. Thirdly, the recently-developed representative Mg-based BMs, Fe-based BMs and Zn-based BMs were comprehensively reviewed with emphases on their microstructures, mechanical properties and degradation behaviors, in vitro and in vivo performances, pre-clinical and clinical trials. Moreover, current approaches to control their biodegradation rates to match the healing rates of the host tissues with various surface modification techniques and novel structural designs are summarized. Finally, the directions of future development and the challenges of transitioning BMs from raw materials to semi-products to final medical devices, will be comprehensively discussed.