Ceramic-metal bionanocomposites for improved performance of medical implants

Poster presented at the 8th International Conference on Energy - Materials - Nanotechnology that was held in Orlado (Unitted States) on 22-25th November 2014.The most obvious advantage of cermets is that they can favorably combine the often dissimilar properties of ceramic and metal components in one material. Because of the many possible combinations of components this field is very creative, since it provides the opportunity to invent an almost unlimited set of new materials with a large spectrum of properties and with multifunctionallity. For instance, these new materials can be used in biomedical field for a new generation of reliable and longer lasting implants with biointegration (osteoinduction, osteoconduction and osseointegration), antibacterial activity, high mechanical properties (fatigue resistance, hardness, wear resistance), mechanical compatibility, etc. Multifunctionality within a material can be integrated on several dimensional scales with increasing interconnectivity between phases and engineering difficulty as the scale decreases. This possibility clearly reveals the power of nanocomposite materials to generate complex multifunctional structures that are hierarchically organized at the nano-, micro-, and meso-levels to meet the overall system goals. Our group has recently succeeded in the development by conventional powder processing of a new macro-micro-nano biocermet with high mechanical behavior, similar to the one of natural bone [1-5]. In this new generation of zirconia-alumina-/Nb-Ta nanocomposite, biomultifunctional synergism (biointegration, biomechanical, biocompatibility) with mechanisms operating at different scales is achieved