Preparation and characterization of porous zinc prepared by spark plasma sintering as a material for biodegradable scaffolds

Recently, zinc-based materials have been extensively investigated as materials suitable for the fabrication of biodegradable orthopedic implants. In this study, porous zinc was prepared as a material for implantation into trabecular bone using spark plasma sintering with different sizes of initial zinc powders, and microstructural, mechanical and corrosion characterizations of the prepared materials were performed. The porosity of the prepared porous samples was approximately 20%. The mechanical properties depended on the initial powder particle size, the pore size and distribution. By using a finer powder (FP),