Chemical and morphologic analysis of titanium dental implants: X-ray photoemission techniques (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with EDX analysis

Abstract

Nowadays the implants rehabilitations are used deeply by clinicians. The importance to technological improvement is working to find the best surface of the fixture to obtain a good and stable osteointegration. By the use of the Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis and the X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (XPS) evaluate the surface quality of commercial implants. The XPS analysis was made to evaluate the chemical elements that compose the material surface of the implant and determine the state of atomical connections. The EDX analysis was performed to evaluate the characteristic qualitative and quantitative of the metallic alloys of the fixtures to determinate the pureness of the metals under the surfaces. The major difference found between the samples is the amount of surface aluminum (in oxidized state, alumina), which in the samples 2 appears to be more than an order of magnitude greater (12 times). In Sample 2 there are traces of P, Na and Cl not present in Sample 1. The presence of C, O, N, Si and Ca are similar on both samples (1 and 2). Now, in the market there are many different dental implants. All the producers are working hard on micro and macro design of the fixtures, but not so many attentions is spent on the type of the alloy composing the implant. From this analysis, it is observed that different Type 4 dental implant are not so similar by composition. Moreover, the pure Titanium is well tolerated by biological tissues, on the other hand is not well known if the presence of other materials can influence the biological reaction. The samples of the fixture analyzed present different composition of the alloy, although both classified as Type 5 Titanium. Further studies on this topic are needed to understand if these differences of alloy composition can influence the clinical outcome.