Novel Technology on Sinthesizing Mg-Zn Biomaterial Using Arc Plasma Sintering

In this work the development of new sintering technology using plasma which is generated by DC-Arc for sinthesizing of biomaterial based on MgZn is reported. Magnesium alloy is suited as implant material due to its young modulus which is close to natural bone and bio compatible with the human body. The MgZn biomaterial is composed of Mg and Zn powder in 94:6 ratio of weight. The mixture was ball milled for four hours, and then isostatic pressed at 570 MPa to form a coin of 1.5 cm in diameter. The coin was subsequently consolidated in the Arc Plasma Sintering (APS) for 30 seconds. For this experiment the APS was operated at 12 Volts and 1 Amps. As comparison, one sample coin was sintered in a conventional furnace at temperature of 350 oC for one hour. The formed MgZn alloys were characterized by using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The result showed the sample sintered in APS exhibits high homogeneity with lattice parameter slightly smaller than sample sintered in the furnace. It can be an indication to the higher solubility of Zn in Mg matrix processed in APS. The 6 wt.% Zn addition formed MgZn alloys in the form of solid solution with smaller distance of crystal planes. Synthesizing of MgZn biomaterial can be performed using APS in short time and low energy.