Alaa A. Mohammed; Jawad K. Oleiwi; Emad S. Al-Hassani
Abstract
Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) materials belong to a group of high-performance thermoplastic polymers thermoplastic that has been proposed as a substitute for metals in biomaterials. In ...
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Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) materials belong to a group of high-performance thermoplastic polymers thermoplastic that has been proposed as a substitute for metals in biomaterials. In this research, in order to improve the performances of PEEK, nano titanium dioxide (n-TiO2) and nano-hydroxyapatite (n-HAp) were incorporated into PEEK loading up to (1.5 wt%) to fabricate PEEK composites by using a method of melt-blending and hot compressing. Properties, such as compression, density, the morphology of fracture, and element analysis were examined for preparing samples. The results showed that the compression and density properties improved with increased weight fraction for two types of reinforcement, but the higher values obtained at (1.5 wt%) for two types of powders. It was found the higher compression strength and compression modulus obtained when reinforced with (1.5% n-HAp) which equal to (107.632 MPa and 3.991 GPa) respectively, than for samples reinforced with (1.5% n-TiO2) which equal to (91.579 MPa and 3.123GPa) respectively, while the density results have opposite behavior, it was found the higher values obtained when reinforced with (n-TiO2) than for samples reinforced with (n-HAp) and at (1.5% n-TiO2) the higher density, which equal to (1.3656) while at (1.5% n-HAp) which equal to (1.3425). Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) manifested, that the fracture morphology transferred from brittle to ductile when reinforced with nano particles. Also, EDS analysis elucidated an identically uniform distribution of n-TiO2 and n-HAp
