In vitro biocompatibility of equal channel angular processed (ECAP) titanium.

This work attempts to understand the in vitro biocompatibility of ultrafine grained titanium prepared by the ECAP route. The results obtained from the mouse fibroblast cell line 3T3 showed a better cell adherence and cell proliferation on ECAP titanium specimen compared to the coarse grain Grade-2 Ti and Ti6Al4V alloy. This could be attributed to the increased surface energy and grain boundary energy and possibly the presence of a large number of nano-size conical groove-like structures (at triple point junctions of grain boundaries on the surface) in the ECAP Ti specimen compared to the coarse grain Grade-2 Ti and Ti6Al4V alloy.