Abstract
Bioactive glasses are promising biomaterials for bone and tissue repair and reconstruction, as they were shown to bond to both hard and soft tissues stimulating cells towards a path of regeneration and self-repair. Unfortunately, due to their relatively poor mechanical properties, such as brittleness, low bending strength and fracture toughness, their applications are limited to non-load-bearing implants. However, bioactive glasses can be successfully applied as coatings on the surface of metallic implants to combine the appropriate mechanical properties of metal alloys to bioactivity and biocompatibility of bioactive glasses. In this review, several available coating techniques to coat metal alloys using bioactive glasses are described, with a special focus on thermal spraying, which nowadays is the most used to deposit coatings on metallic implants.
Highlights
Biomaterials have been widely used as implants to replace or repair structural parts of the human body
The advantages of high velocity suspension flame spraying (HVSFS) over other thermal spray techniques is the high velocity of feedstock, and the relatively low flame temperature, which allow the deposition of thin, dense, and finely structured layers, with nanometric or submicrometric particles and nanometric porosity for maximum specific surface area [72]
The suspension plasma spraying (SPS) technique has already been proposed for a large variety of functional applications, such as solid oxide fuel cells [85], thermal barrier coatings [86], and it has been considered for the deposition of bioactive glass coatings [84]
Summary
Biomaterials have been widely used as implants to replace or repair structural parts of the human body. Bioactive coatings (i) avoid the corrosion and degradation of metallic implants, (ii) protect surrounding tissues from adverse interaction with degradation products of metallic implants, and (iii) enhance bioactive fixation of implants to the living bone promoting osseointegration. In this context, the principal requirement for bioactive coatings is the achievement of strong adhesion to the substrate, because such adhesion determines the long-term stability of the implant [16,17].
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