LAUSR

Abstract Biodegradable metals are emerging as novel implant materials by overcoming the drawbacks of the existing materials used commercially. This work investigates the suitability of Fe-35Mn-5Si as a biodegradable implant by examining its mechanical and corrosion behavior. The processing involves High Energy Ball Milling (HEBM) followed by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) and heat treatment at optimized conditions to develop a single-phase austenitic alloy. The heat-treated (HT) samples exhibited low magnetic susceptibility of 3.47x10−7 due to the austenitic phase formation. Yield strength of 500 MPa, UTS of 712 MPa, Young’s modulus of 110 GPa, and hardness of 380 HV along with 9.5% elongation was obtained in the optimized samples, which are comparable to Ti alloy and 316L stainless steel metallic implants. The corrosion tests yielded degradation rates of 0.025 mm/year for the alloy in standard Hank’s solution. This alloy could pave the way for the fabrication of low-cost biodegradable implants using the simple powder metallurgy route.