Natural Aging of Biomaterials in Ambient and Physiological Environments

Biomaterials, generally defined as materials that interact with biological systems, are ubiquitous in the field of biomedical engineering. Biomaterials can undergo natural aging, in which changes in material properties occur in near‐ambient or near‐physiological environments without external acceleration. This can be either beneficial or harmful to the material or the tissue that interacts with the material. Such natural aging depends on material composition, temperature, pH, storage media composition, sterilization, and numerous other factors. This review focuses on studies investigating the natural aging of polymers, metals, ceramics, and nanomaterials, and their impact on material characteristics and functions as biomaterials.