Thermally Sprayed Porous PEEK Coating for Biomedical Implants

Abstract

The present study reports the novel results of microstructural and mechanical properties of highly porous Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) coating. PEEK is already considered as a material for biomedical implants. A new kind of approach is proposed for manufacturing of highly porous PEEK coating on a dense PEEK coating for orthopedic implants and successfully implemented to create novel biomimetic porous PEEK coating by means of thermal spray process. To imitate the structure of natural bone, as-sprayed top PEEK coating has porosity of more than 60% vol. and pore sizes of 30-80 μm. Mechanical results of dense PEEK coating show that PEEK coating exhibited good strength, hardness (20 HV0.1) and good bonding strength (15 MPa) with the metal substrate. Thermal sprayed porous PEEK coating that can be used for future implants instead of plasma sprayed titanium coating on dense PEEK implants because porous PEEK improves the bone-implant interface joining compared to plasma-sprayed titanium coating on PEEK.