Zinc materials are considered promising candidates for bioabsorbable medical devices used for the fixation of broken bones or stents. Materials for these applications must meet high mechanical property requirements. One of the ways to fulfil these demands is related to microstructure refinement, particularly the decrease in grain size. In the present work, we combine two powder metallurgy techniques (mechanical alloying-MA, and spark plasma sintering-SPS) to prepare Zn-1Mg-0.5Sr nanograin material. The microstructure of compacted material consisted of Zn grains and particles of Mg2Zn11 intermetallic phases from 100 to 500 nm in size, which resulted in high values of hardness and a compressive strength equal to 86 HV1 and 327 MPa, respectively. In this relation, the combination of the suggested techniques provides an innovative way to form extremely fine microstructures without significant coarsening during powder compaction at increased temperatures.

Department of Functional Materials Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Na Slovance 1999 2 182 21 Prague Czech Republic

Department of Metals and Corrosion Engineering Faculty of Chemical Technology University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 5 166 28 Prague Czech Republic

Department Physics and Chemistry of Materials Institute of Metals and Technology University of Ljubljana Lepi pot 11 SI 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia

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