Fretting corrosion resistance and fretting corrosion product cytocompatibility of ferritic stainless steel.

To avoid nickel ion release from SUS317L as an implant material, a new type of nickel, commercially free, of high purity, and high chromium ferritic stainless steel, was developed. The new stainless steel (FJ) was studied for aspects of fretting corrosion and cytocompatibility compared with SUS317L. A pin-on-plate fretting corrosion test in an artificial physiologic solution, and cell culture in media with the addition of the artificial physiologic solution used for fretting was conducted. Resistance to the fretting induced crevice corrosion of FJ was higher than that of SUS317L because of the favorable electrochemical stability of the FJ alloy. The amount of iron ion or colloidal fine particles released from FJ was about a quarter of that from SUS317L, although the weight loss of a pin of FJ was almost 5/3 that of SUS317L. The artificial physiologic solution used for SUS317L fretting was more harmful to the growth of L929 and MC3T3-E1 cells than that used for FJ fretting. FJ was therefore superior to SUS317L as a biomaterial, judging from the resistance to fretting-induced crevice corrosion, electrochemical stability, and the cytocompatibility of fretting corrosion products.