Coating of the orthopaedic titanium alloys with sol-gel derived hydroxyapatite

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) is known to be both biocompatible and bioactive material, however, due to its poor mechanical properties and design limitations is not suitable for applying as a load bearing implant. This could be overcome by using appropriate metallic substrates covered with HAp, derived via different techniques. These coatings allow improved adhesion strength of the load bearing substrate to the bone, resulting in shorter healing periods as well as predictable behaviour of the implant for longer periods of time. There are different techniques of producing HAp appropriate for coating purposes. Due to the small particle size of the grains derived, sol-gel route is preferable where lower sintering temperatures are of primary importance. For better adhesion between substrate and hydroxyapatite coating, the surface of titanium substrate, in this study, was converted to titanium nitride and/or oxynitride. Sintering temperatures of 900 deg C have been used for producing crystalline HAp coatings. The control of sol-gel solutions and the analysis of the coatings were carried out using XRD, SEM and DTA techniques. Results obtained indicate high quality HAp coatings can be produced on titanium substrates especially with complex shapes that benefits over the other coating methods