Biodegradable implants are devices or structures designed to break down naturally within a biological system after fulfilling their function, often drawing on plant-derived biopolymers such as cellulose, starch, and lignin as source materials. In plant science, this field is significant both as a source of raw materials—since plants provide many of the polymers used to engineer these implants—and as a research context, where biodegradable carriers are used to deliver nutrients, hormones, or genetic material directly into plant tissues. Understanding how plant-based polymers degrade and interact with living systems advances both agricultural biotechnology and sustainable materials science.
Researchers compared two magnesium-zinc-calcium alloys as biodegradable bone implants for jaw and facial surgery, finding that the lower-zinc formula (1% Zn) degrades slowly and steadily while building a bone-like mineral coating, making it far more suitable for load-bearing implants than the higher-zinc version.
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Mg1Zn0.6Ca (1% zinc) reduced its corrosion rate from 1.81 mm/year to just 0.26 mm/year over 8 weeks while reaching 65.5% hydroxyapatite crystallinity — mimicking mature bone mineral.
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Mg6Zn0.6Ca (6% zinc) maintained a persistently high degradation rate (~2 mm/year), suffered premature embrittlement (flexural strength dropped to ~51 MPa vs ~89 MPa for the 1% zinc alloy), and showed declining mineral maturity.
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The calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in the 1% zinc alloy rose from 0.29 to 0.68 over 8 weeks, indicating progressive bone-like mineralization, whereas the 6% zinc alloy's ratio fell from 1.42 to 0.35.
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