A new material for hip prosthesis without considerable debris release

This work presents an alternative bearing surface in the field of total hip replacements. It is composed of a polymer composite polyether-ether-ketone (Peek) as the matrix and a carbon fibre as reinforcement. The authors carried out experimental research in order to investigate the formation of debris caused by tribological coupling of three types of Peek and cobalt chrome alloy. The wear tests (ASTM 99G) have been performed with a pin on disc tribometer in an air environment, under the following conditions: dry, water lubrication using demineralised water as a lubricant and human serum. A method of filtering under vacuum is used to extract the debris from the lubricants used in the tribological test, and the analysis at Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is used to characterize the debris.