Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Encapsulated Magnesium-Based Nanocomposites to Improve Mechanical, Degradation and Antibacterial Performances for Biomedical Device Applications

Nowadays, magnesium (Mg) composites are gaining much attention in biomedical device applications due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability properties. This research is to study the microstructure, mechanical, corrosive and antibacterial properties of Mg−2.5Zn−0.5Zr/xCNT (x = 0, 0.3, 0.6, 0.9) composites made with mechanical alloying and semi-powder metallurgy (SPM) processes, accompanied by SPS. Based on the microstructural characteristics, CNTs were almost uniformly distributed in the Mg matrix. The results displayed that the hardness and ultimate compressive strength (UCS) of the composites were meaningfully increased compared to a Mg matrix. Moreover, the degradation rate of Mg composites was almost halved in the presence of small amounts of CNTs in the Kokubo simulated body fluid (SBF). Due to the slowed degradation process, the Mg−2.5Zn−0.5Zr/0.6CNT biocomposites exhibited excellent cellular compatibility. Evaluation of antibacterial activity displayed that adding CNTs to the Mg matrix could significantly prevent the growing of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). In general, the research results showed that CNTs are an efficient reinforcement for Mg−2.5Zn−0.5Zr/CNTs biocomposites, which leads to improved mechanical, degradation and antibacterial performances.