Fabrication of drug-loaded graded porous Ti6Al4V structures for load-bearing biomedical applications

The present study investigated drug-loaded, titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) graded porous structure with desired mechanical properties for implant-based local drug delivery application. The fabricated graded porous metallic structures displayed compressive yield strength in a range of 110.8–283.8 MPa, open porosity 30.2–69.4% and Young’s modulus 2.2–12.1 GPa. These characteristics resemble the range for human bone tissue. The electrochemical corrosion behaviour of the fabricated structures was found satisfactory even though comparatively higher corrosion rate was observed in porous samples. The analysis showed the formation of protective passive layer on the exposed surface of the porous samples. The micrographs confirmed the presence of well-distributed interconnected pores in the peripheral region of the samples which were used to load drug (simvastatin) using different dispersion media. It was found that by varying the later, the in vitro release of loaded drug can be prolonged to as long as 14 days.

Graphical abstract