Dear Dr. Zac Kazi ,

I am not an expert on this topic but I suggest you to have a look at the following, interesting paper:

-Antibacterial metals and alloys for potential biomedical implants

Erlin Zhang, Xiaotong Zhao, Jiali Hu, Ruoxian Wang, Shan Fu, and Gaowu Qina

Bioact Mater., Aug; 6(8): 2569–261 (2021)

Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7876544/

My best regards, Pierluigi Traverso.

Dear Dr Zac Kazi . See the following useful RG link: Article Characterization and biocompatibility study of hydroxyapatit...

Kindly see also the following very useful RG link: Article The Generation of Wear-Resistant Antimicrobial Stainless Ste...

Also check please the following very good RG link: Article Antibacterial effect of 317L stainless steel contained coppe...

The following RG link is very useful: Article Antibacterial metals and alloys for potential biomedical implants

In my opinion, they aren't related. Wear resistance is related to relative hardness of the surface primarily, and antimicrobial activity can be due to numerous reasons such as surface topography, ion release, surface energy, etc.

Looking at the specific paper you referenced (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2011.01.065), the authors claim that the antimicrobial activity in their study is due to ion release. As a result, there is no link between wear resistance and antimicrobial activity because ion release does not improve wear resistance.

It should be noted that biologists typically look at antimicrobial activity on a log scale. As a result, I'm not sure that the data presented in that paper is good evidence of antimicrobial activity. However, I'm not a biologist...

The only material property that I can think of that might affect both wear resistance and antimicrobial activity (i.e., attachment of organisms to a surface) is roughness.

Put it simply, Cr that provides high hardness carbide (W/V/Ta provides much harder) to make steel wear-resistant also provides some anti-bacterial properties by drawing S (e.g. of cysteine/cystine/methionine AA ends), or amino/carbonyl groups as lignands of microbial cell wall and organelles. Ni provides face-centered cubic (FCC) structure of stainless steel more stable compared to body-centered cubic (BCC) structure, so more Cr can be added to stainless steel that provides high hardenability (by heat treatment), and also cytotoxicity of Ni ligands provide antimicrobial properties (since Ni is not leached out much from stainless steel, it is not very poisonous for most humans except for those who are very sensitive to nickel. Ni itself does not form carbide but raises heat treatment response (Hardenability)

Thus, the same alloying agents providing high hardness and high hardenability of stainless steel also provide surface-disinfecting properties due to the metals chelating functional groups of essential biomolecules of microbes.

In addition to Mark L. Morrison comment,

Cr also may provides high hardness carbide to make steel wear-resistant, also provides high corrosion passivation. Therafter, stainless steel provides both wear and corrosion resistance.

Idir, I agree that Cr provides improved wear and corrosion resistance (i.e., less ion release due to the chromium oxide passivation layer). However, that wasn't the question. The question as I read it was what mechanism can improve both wear resistance and antibacterial activity.

The authors of the referenced paper cited ion release as the proposed mechanism for antimicrobial activity. If that is the case, it would appear that Cr would be detrimental to antimicrobial activity since it decrease ion release.