Mechanical alloying and amorphization of Ti75Cu25 alloy

Ti-Cu alloys are used in dental and medical applications, due to their good mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and antibacterial properties. These properties are sensitive to microstructure and can be improved by formation of intermetallic compounds or amorphization of crystalline Ti-Cu powder. This study focuses on the amorphization of Ti75Cu25 powders prepared by mechanical alloying (MA). Ball milling, up to 60 h, of Ti and Cu powders leads to an amorphous structure. Laser granulometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were carried out for different milling times. Future research on consolidation of amorphous powder via electrical resistance sintering will be performed to obtain bulk samples with amorphous phase and/or nanocrystalline phase with Ti3Cu and/or Ti2Cu intermetallic compounds.