The Challenge

For people suffering from damaged or arthritic joints such as hip and knee joints, medical implant surgery offers regained motion, pain relief, and improved lifestyle.

However, these implants have a relatively high failure rate, leading to more pain, lifestyle disruption, and additional medical procedures for patients. In addition, when an implanted alloy — a combination of metals — corrodes, the aluminum, cobalt and chromium can end up in tissues, organs, and the bloodstream, in some cases leading to depression, dementia or cancer.

The Pivotal Discovery

Materials scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory specialize in understanding and engineering innovative ways to stabilize nuclear waste forms — the packages that are built to secure waste for millions of years — in different conditions.

They saw similarities in the electrochemical process of corrosion between metals in nuclear waste forms and in medical device implants.

Argonne scientists learned that traditional medical implant testing tends to focus on the short term and ignores the full range of environmental conditions occurring in the body. For instance, increasing physical activity alters the oxygen level in blood, which can drive the corrosion rate higher. They also found that standard implant testing may not account for stabilization or destabilization of the implant surface, which controls long-term corrosion behavior.

The Argonne scientists began testing medical implant materials, using the same stringent standards they use for nuclear waste form testing, and they made some pivotal discoveries. For instance, they found that one implant material corroded rapidly under conditions that were consistent with the in-vivo environment. This risk for rapid corrosion had gone undetected in previous, traditional studies.

The Argonne team continues to study medical implant materials and is testing ideas for improved performance.

The Benefits

Argonne’s world-class corrosion expertise offers medical device manufacturers a pathway to developing longer lasting and more stable medical implants.

To learn about tapping into Argonne’s expertise, contact partners@​anl.​gov.

Other Applications

• Water systems
• Oil and gas pipelines
• Auto exhaust systems
• 3D printed materials