Evaluation of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of a Ti10Mo8Nb Alloy for Biomedical Applications
, Andres Henrique Palomo Fontenele 1, Gilbert Silva 1, Kerolene Barboza da Silva 2, João Pedro Aquiles Carobolante 2, Edwin Gilberto Medina Bejarano 1, Mirian de Lourdes Noronha Motta Melo 1, Ana Paula Rosifini Alves Claro 2 and Daniela Sachs 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript by P. Capellato et al. is a study of mechanical and chemical properties and biocompatibility of the Ti10Mo8Nb alloy for implant applications. The authors compare this beta-phase alloy with commercial samples. The manuscript is well written, and the results are clearly presented. I have only minor suggestions to improve the manuscript.
1) Materials and methods, page 3. H2SO4, HF and HNO3 are water solutions, too. Please, provide their concentrations.
2) Page 4. What XRD machine was used?
3) Page 5. "The absorbance reading was taken... using 540 nm..." wavelength?
4) Results and discussion, page 5. The authors describe alpha-, beta-, and gamma-phases. Please, provide a new figure with Ti-Mo and Ti-Nb binary phase diagrams, and indicate concentration and temperature ranges for the proposed phases.
5) Figure 1. It is difficult to distinguish colors in the print version. Please, use a contrast color scheme.
6) Figure 5 shows XRD of beta-Ti10Mo8Nb. Why the 200 and 211 peaks are absent? They should be located at 58 and 73 degrees, respectively.
Author Response
30th May 2022
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
The authors of the manuscript and I are very grateful for your review and considerations. Rest assured that all of your observations were carefully analyzed and they undoubtedly enriched the result of the work. Thus, you can find comments on the revisions made based on your review following.
On page 3, their concentrations were added to the H2SO4, HF and HNO3 solutions, as requested. On page 4, the specification of the machine used for XRD has been added. On page 5, the term “...using a wavelength of 540 nm” was added to specify the wavelength for the absorbance analysis. On page 5, we understand that the diagram of the binary phases of the alloys would be interesting. However, for this work, the focus was intended for the evaluation of the ternary alloy with its properties and comparisons with other alloys used for biomedical applications. In such a way that the composition of the diagram of the binary phases was recorded for future research by the working group. Figure 1 was redone, highlighting only the average value obtained from the stress-strain readings, with the understanding that by this format the result is presented in a more objective way. In Figure 5, the remaining missing peaks were identified. Also, an evaluation of the literature was made about its consistency in comparison to projects of Ti, Mo and Nb alloys with similar concentrations. The text of this analysis has been included on page 9.
It is important to highlight that the reviewed manuscript was edited using the Word (Microsoft Office) “Track Changes” tool, in order to make your identification of changes easier.
Again, I appreciate your availability for reviewing and indicating improvements in the work. If you have any questions or other suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Originality and results of research are almost good. However, presentation style is not good. For example,
(1) Figure caption should be placed below the figure.
(2) In Fig. 2, sample name should be placed in appropriate positions.
(3) In Fig. 5, figure and caption are separated each other.
(4) In references, unnecessary description such as "Biomat X" "Niobio X" should be deleted.
Author Response
30th May 2022
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
The authors of the manuscript and I are very grateful for your review and considerations. Rest assured that all of your observations were carefully analyzed and they undoubtedly enriched the result of the work. Thus, you can find comments on the revisions made based on your review following.
Figure 2 was redone, in order to organize the arrangement of terms with the graph. The text in Figure 5 has been rearranged with the image. Inappropriate descriptions in the references have been removed.
It is important to highlight that the reviewed manuscript was edited using the Word (Microsoft Office) “Track Changes” tool, in order to make your identification of changes easier.
Again, I appreciate your availability for reviewing and indicating improvements in the work. If you have any questions or other suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Experimental data should be completed:
- purity of ingredients (commercial ingredients may be of different purity),
- "button" should be replaced with "ingot",
- was the ingot turned over during melting?
- provide more details on Rotary forming.
The work should be editorially corrected (captions under the figures, figure 2 should be corrected, the pictures in figure 4 should be enlarged, the fonts in figure 5 should be increased, the position of the drawing should be checked, it is also proposed to rebuild figure 6, it is not legible in its current state).
Why did the authors only include one XRD? Images should be posted before and after the heat treatment.
In addition, the References section is full of room for improvement.
I believe that the work is very poorly prepared in terms of editing. Moreover, the originality and novelty of the presented results is questionable, the influence of Mo and Nb has long been known for titanium alloys for biomedical applications. I believe that the work does not bring anything new to the field.
Author Response
30th May 2022
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
The authors of the manuscript and I are very grateful for your review and considerations. Rest assured that all of your observations were carefully analyzed and they undoubtedly enriched the result of the work. Thus, you can find comments on the revisions made based on your review following.
The purity of commercial materials used in processing has been added on page 3. The term “button” has been replaced by “ingot”, as requested. The explanation about the ingot being turned over each time it was added on page 3. About the Rotary forming, information about the model, rotations per minute, rotation intensity and dimensions of the ingots applied was provided on page 3. The captions were placed under the figures. The images in Figure 4 have been enlarged. The font in Figure 5 has been increased, as well as the graph has been redone in order to facilitate the identification of peaks. The text in Figure 6 has been redone and the reference line over 1% has been added to make it more consistent with the text. We understand that it would be interesting to evaluate the XRD before and after heating, however, in this study, the diffractogram was investigated only as specified. In any case, the generated XRD allowed a proper comparison with others made for alloys with similar characteristics. We appreciate your comment and suggestion about the novelty. It is important to highlight that this study focused on the properties of the ternary alloy with that composition for Ti, Mo and Nb and not in the individual influence of the metals in the alloy. The effects of the composition of Ti10Mo8Nb alloy in its properties is not well described and deepened in literature as it is for other Ti-alloys, such as Ti7.5Mo and Ti6Al4V. Thus, the novelty is stablished by the results obtained for the proposed alloy and its comparison with other ones. This achievement is potential to indicate better alloys for biomedical uses in orthopedics and dentistry.
I would like to point out that the reviewed manuscript was edited using the Word (Microsoft Office) “Track Changes” tool, in order to make your identification of changes easier.
Again, I appreciate your availability for reviewing and indicating improvements in the work. If you have any questions or other suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
This is well revised and improved a lot.
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewer,
The authors of the manuscript and I are very grateful for your review and considerations.
, I appreciate your availability for reviewing and indicating improvements in the work.
Sincerely,
Patricia Capellato
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors addressed some of the comments. However, I believe that the article is not appropriate for publication in Metals. The statement "The effects of the composition of Ti10Mo8Nb alloy in its properties is not well described and deepened in literature as it is for other Ti-alloys, such as Ti7.5Mo and Ti6Al4V. Thus, the novelty is stablished by the results obtained for the The proposed alloy and its comparison with other ones. This achievement is potential to indicate better alloys for biomedical uses in orthopedics and dentistry "is not enough for me.
Although Ti10Mo8Nb alloy is not as common as Ti6Al4V, there are various studies of the structure and properties of this material. Despite improvements, the manuscript is still in the form of a research report rather than a research paper.
Author Response
3rd June 2022
Dear Reviewer,
The authors of the manuscript and I are very pleased with your time to review and give your contribution. We will take your opinions into consideration for the development of new studies.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Patricia Capellato
