Fabrication of Porous Niobium-Based Biological Materials via Impregnation and Their Properties

The porous niobium-based materials with high strength and excellent biocompatibility were prepared by a novel foam impregnating process using polyurethane foam as the support. The porosity, microstructure and mechanical properties were characterized by XRD, SEM and so on. Results show that there are three-dimensional connected pore structure and pure phase in the prepared porous niobium-based materials. The porosity, pore size and average density is 71.4%, 500 mu m and 2.45 g/cm(3), respectively. The average elastic modulus of three-dimensional connected porous Nb is 815 MPa and the average compressive strength is 36.62 MPa, which coincide with cancellous bone in mechanical properties.