Nanosized Controlled Surface Pretreatment of Biometallic Alloy 316L Stainless Steel

Stainless steel (AISI 316L) is a medical grade stainless steel alloy used extensively in medical devices and in the biomedical field. 316L stainless steel was successfully electropolished via an ecologically friendly and biocompatible ionic liquid (IL) medium based on Vitamin B4 (NB4) and resulting in nanosized surface roughness and topography. Voltammetry and chronoamperometry tests determined optimum polishing conditions for the stainless steel alloy while atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) provided surface morphology comparisons to benchmark success of each electropolishing condition. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) combined with SEM revealed significantly smoother surfaces for each alloy surface while indicating that the constituent metals comprising each alloy effectively electropolished at uniform rates.