The Effect of Vacuum Leak Rate on Sintering of Porous Titanium Scaffold

Abstract

Titanium is a highly reactive metal and its high-temperature processing has to be done at a high-vacuum atmosphere. In this research, porous titanium scaffolds were fabricated using the space holder method for dental reconstruction purposes. Accordingly, the samples were sintered in two different vacuum furnaces at the vacuum level of 0.013 Pa, including high-vacuum leak rate (HLR) and low-vacuum leak rate (LLR). The microstructural study using the scanning electron microscope revealed that there was no significant difference in the microstructure of the samples. A compression test on the porous titanium scaffolds indicated that the HLR sample had less strength than the LLR sample. X-ray diffractometry also revealed that, besides the titanium peaks, the HLR sample included titanium oxide phases, unlike the LLR sample. Therefore, both vacuum chamber design and a vacuum leak rate of the furnace are parameters which are effective on the sintering of the porous titanium scaffold and should be considered.