Dissoluble and degradable CaLi-based metallic glasses

We study the degradable and dissoluble features of a Ca-Li-Mg-Zn bulk metallic glass in pure water at room temperature. A remarkable degradable feature of the metallic glasses is that the degradation is controllable by changing the composition and components. The degradable metallic glasses with superior combined properties of polymer-like thermal plasticity at low temperature (40–70 °C), the ultralow elastic moduli comparable to that of human bones, and ultralow density (< 2 g/cm3) in known metallic glasses to date, and good machinability at a lower temperature in the supercooled liquid region could have potential applications. The metallic glasses also provide a model system to study the corrosion behavior in glasses.