Porous titanium by powder injection moulding of titanium hydride and PMMA space holders

Porous titanium is used as implant material because of its high specific strength, bone-like stiffness, biocompatibility and good bone cell ingrowth provided that the open pores have sizes between 100 μm and 500μm. Recently, Ti grade 4 has been obtained by powder injection moulding of titanium hydride, which is cheaper and less reactive than pure titanium. The feasibility of a novel route combining titanium hydride and polymethylmethacrylate space holders to produce porous titanium is establishec in this work.