Investigating dry electro-chemical polishing of titanium structures

Abstract

With the introduction of novel automated polishing methods, more attention has recently been paid to post-processing methods of metallic implants. One such method is the polishing process known as DryLyte®. The most significant difference to previous electropolishing methods is the use of solid organic polymer particles activated with sulfonic acid acting as the electrolyte. The solid particle electrolyte raises new question in terms of polishing results for small features as well as overall polishing quality of metallic surfaces. The aim of this study was to determine the quality of the polishing process for titanium rods with different initial surface roughness and with tapped holes in three different orientations (0°, 45°, 90°) by subjecting them to the DryLyte® polishing process for 30 min. In addition, the influence of the process parameters voltage and the anodic time T2 during the treatment on the resulting surface quality and the polishing efficiency was determined. In conclusion, the dry electro-chemical finishing process has shown great smoothing capabilities for titanium even with small, tapped holes. The Ra values were lowered significantly throughout all titanium samples after 30 min polishing time.