Scientists discover that mixing gold with titanium makes a compound that is four times stronger than titanium alone and could soon be used as the leading material in artificial knee and hip replacements. A new study led by Emila Morosan, professor of physics and astronomy, of chemistry, and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, reveals how the team was able to develop this pure, ultrahard compound.
The compound itself is easy to make. When this particular gold-titanium compound was made the team tried to grind it into powder for X-ray purposes, but the material was too hard for them to do it, even using a diamond coated mortar and pestle. Follow-up tests were carried out to see just how hard the substance was. During these tests, the team also tested previous compositions made of titanium and gold that were used as comparison tools in the original study.
Results from the study showed that by making the titanium-3-gold compound at high temperatures produces a crystalline form of the beta version of the alloy which is four times harder than titanium. At low temperature, another cubic structure was formed that was the alpha form of the titanium-3-gold and was about the same hardness as titanium. They also measured the hardness of the beta form of the crystal and believed that titanium-3-gold would be comparable to titanium biomedical implants currently used. With the promising results of the study, we may soon see this new compound as a replacement to all biomedical implants in the future.
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