Research hotspots and trends of biodegradable magnesium and its alloys

With the increasing demand for innovative therapies, biodegradable magnesium has attracted more and more attention, which could avoid secondary surgery and reduce complications. Until now, plenty of researchers take part in the research & development of this field, and many articles have been published every year. However, it is a huge challenge to predict research trends and definite topics for researchers, which could result in low research value, wasted resources and even slowed medical device transformation. Usually, reviews summarize a specific topic, such as alloy elements, coating designs, degradable properties, etc. Deriving key indicators from a large amount of data with the help of statistical analysis, make a historical review, current situation analysis, and future prediction more convincing. Herein, it has been conducted a bibliometric study according to 2669 publications collected from the Web of Science (WOS) database from 2005 to 2021. By analyzing some key factors, including annual publications, keywords, country contributions, authors as well as institutions, the evolution of biodegradable magnesium is objectively studied. The research trends of biodegradable magnesium alloys are corrosion resistance, the influence of microstructural control on mechanical behavior and bio-functions of implants in a chronological manner. The co-occurrence mapping of the countries and authors suggests that current in-depth research and development of magnesium is more emphasis on institutional and international cooperation.