Influence d'un dépôt de cuivre sur la vitesse de corrosion d'un alliage à base de fer pour des applications de stents biorésorbables

Details

Supervisors

Jacques, Pascal

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil biomédical

Abstract

enStenting is one of most frequent intervention in the world. It helps restoring at best blood flow in an obstructed artery. This intervention may lead to some complications like mainly restenosis and thrombosis related to stent’s presence. Those complications have increased the interest of researchers to develop new technologies such as bioresorbable stents. The goal of those stents is to provide an artery mechanical support during the healing period and then progressively resorbing when stent’s mission is reached. Biodegradable stents are already available on the market but they are mainly polymer-based stents which have rather weak mechanical properties. Therefore bioresorbable metal stents appear to provide increased mechanical properties. Iron based bioresorbable stents show good mechanical properties but have weak degradation rate. The theme of this master thesis is to study the influence of copper deposit on the corrosion rate of iron-based alloys in the context of bioresorbable stents. The process consist of realizing polarization and immersion tests in a SBF solution at 37°C of iron-based samples partially covered with copper and without copper to try to highlight copper behaviour on corrosion rate. Then the samples are analysed using SEM and EDX in order to observe chemical elements present on sample surface. On one hand the experiences show the copper deposit on the iron-based sample acts as a galvanic cell increasing metal corrosion rate but on the other hand the corrosion slowdown when corrosion product start covering the surface.