Sintering behavior and mechanical properties of a metal injection molded Ti–Nb binary alloy as biomaterial

•The sintering of the MIM Ti–Nb alloy consists of three steps.•The Nb particles act as diffusion barriers during sintering.•The TiCx only precipitate in the cooling step during sintering.•The TiCx hardly influence the sintering process of MIM Ti–Nb alloy.•The MIM Ti–Nb alloy exhibits high strength, low Young’s modulus but poor ductility. Sintering behavior, microstructure and mechanical properties of a Ti–16Nb alloy processed by metal injection molding (MIM) technology using elemental powders were investigated in this work by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), dilatometer, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). It was found that from 700°C to 1500°C the homogenization and densification process of MIM Ti–16Nb alloy consisted of three steps, i.e., Ti-diffusion-controlled step, Ti–Nb-diffusion step and matrix-diffusion step. Titanium carbide formation was observed in the samples sintered at 1300°C and 1500°C, but not in the ones sintered at 900°C and 1100°C. The MIM Ti–16Nb specimens sintered at 1500°C exhibited a good combination of high tensile strength and low Young’s modulus. However, the titanium carbide particles led to poor ductility.