Porous magnesium-based materials are biodegradable and promising for use in orthopaedic applications, but their applications are hampered by their difficult fabrication. This work reports the preparation of porous magnesium materials by a powder metallurgy technique using ammonium bicarbonate as spacer particles. The porosity of the materials depended on the amount of ammonium bicarbonate and was found to have strong negative effects on flexural strength and corrosion behaviour. However, the flexural strength of materials with porosities of up to 28 vol.% was higher than the flexural strength of non-metallic biomaterials and comparable with that of natural bone. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.