Effect of physico-chemical properties of simulated body fluids on the electrochemical behaviour of CoCrMo alloy

The behaviour of the CoCrMo alloy was studied under different experimental conditions of solution pH, chemical composition (phosphate buffer solution with and without addition of bovine serum albumin) and aeration (presence and absence of oxygen in the solution). With this purpose, electrochemical techniques such as open circuit measurements (OCP), potentiodynamic curves, potentiostatic tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed.The results show that the general corrosion behaviour of CoCrMo alloy depends on the solution pH. Thus, the effect of BSA and the aeration conditions are related to the solution pH. At pH 3 no influence of BSA was observed in deoxygenated solutions which imply that BSA acts over the oxygen reduction reaction in acidic media. On the contrary, a noticeable influence of BSA addition was observed at pH 7.4 (independently on the gas content). Finally, at pH 10, the influence of BSA was only significant in oxygenated solution. It was found that H₂PO₄⁻ favours the formation of passivating compounds which improves the resistance of the CoCrMo alloy to passive dissolution. Therefore, when the concentration of the H₂PO₄⁻ increases (when pH decreases) the polarization resistance of the alloy also increases. On the other hand, the oxygen (aerated conditions) decreases the polarization resistance of the alloy in all the studied conditions.