Enhanced antibacterial response in Zn-modified additively manufactured NiTi alloy

In this work a superelastic NiTi alloy with improved antibacterial behavior was manufactured via Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) process. In details, NiTi and Zn powders were premixed for printing fully dense samples. It was found that the presence of Zn (2 % wt.) alloyed onto the surface of the as-built NiTi samples promoted a promising antibacterial response against Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, showing an improved behaviour with respect to the undoped NiTi samples. Additionally, Zn did not supress the martensitic transformation of the NiTi alloy and allowed to maintain the superelastic recovery.