Electrophoretically deposited nanosized hydroxyapatite coatings on 316LVM stainless steel for orthopaedic implants

Abstract

Hydroxyapatite is widely used bioceramic material in implant coatings research because of its bioactive behavior when being deposited onto the metallic implant and compatibility to the human bones composition. The coating of nanosized hydroxyapatite was electrophoretically deposited on blasted surface of stainless steel 316LVM samples at constant voltage, for different deposition times and subsequently sintered in both, vacuum and argon atmosphere, at 1040?C and 1000?C, respectively. Although sintering temperatures needed to achieve highly dense coatings can cause HAp coating phase changes, the possibility to obtain a bioactive coating on 316LVM substrate, without the coatings phase changes due to the nature of the used stoichiometric nanostructured hydroxyapatite is presented in this work. The thermal stability of the used HAp powder was assessed by DTA-TG analyses over the temperature range of 23?C-1000?C, i.e. at the or nearby experimental sintering temperature. The microstructure characterization was accomplished using SEM, while phase composition was determined using XRD.nema