Influence of the sliding velocity and the applied potential on the corrosion and wear behavior of HC CoCrMo biomedical alloy in simulated body fluids

The corrosion and tribocorrosion behavior of an as-cast high carbon CoCrMo alloy immersed in phosphate buffered solution (PBS) and phosphate buffered solution with bovine serum albumin (PBS+BSA) have been analyzed by electrochemical techniques and surface microscopy. After the electrochemical characterization of the alloy in both solutions, the sample was studied tribo-electrochemically (by open circuit potential, OCP measurements, potentiodynamic curves and potentiostatic tests) in a ball-on-disk tribometer rotating in different sliding velocities. The influence of solution chemistry, sliding velocity and applied potential on the corrosion and tribocorrosion behavior of the CoCrMo alloy has been studied. Anodic current density increases with sliding velocity but wear rate does not change at an applied anodic potential; on the other hand, BSA modifies the wear debris behavior (by agglomerating the debris formed by mechanical removal of particles) thus increasing the mechanical wear volume. Under cathodic conditions, cathodic current density also increases during mechanical contact while the wear rate decreases with sliding velocity and BSA lubricates the contact thus reducing the total wear volume with respect to the non-containing BSA solution. The work shows how the electrode potential critically affects the corrosion and tribocorrosion rates by increasing the wear coefficients at applied anodic potentials due to severe wear accelerated corrosion.