Structural characterization of hydroxyapatite layer coatings on titanium supports

This paper presents a study on an alternative coating method based on biomimetic techniques which are designed to form a crystalline HA layer in a manner similar to the process of natural bone formation. The HA formation on the surface of titanium alloy pretreated with NaOH solution is investigated. Two types of solutions such as supersaturated calcification solution (SCS) and modified SCS (M-SCS) were used to investigate bone-like apatite formation on alkali-treated titanium. The HA deposits were investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results obtained indicate that HA layers with preferred orientation and composition similar to that found in bone can be biomimetically synthesized depending on the ion composition and concentration of the solution. The data suggest that the method utilized in this work can be successfully applied to obtain deposition of uniform coatings of crystalline hydroxyapatite on titanium substrates. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.