Abstract
Hydroxyapatite (HA) coating of hard tissue implants is widely employed for its biocompatible and osteoconductive properties as well as its improved mechanical properties. Plasma technology is the principal deposition process for coating HA on bioactive metals for this application. However, thermal decomposition of HA can occur during the plasma deposition process, resulting in coating variability in terms of purity, uniformity and crystallinity, which can lead to implant failure caused by aseptic loosening. In this study, CoBlastTM, a novel blasting process has been used to successfully modify a titanium (V) substrate with a HA treatment using a dopant/abrasive regime. The impact of a series of apatitic abrasives under the trade name MCD, was investigated to determine the effect of abrasive particle size on the surface properties of both microblast (abrasive only) and CoBlast (HA/abrasive) treatments. The resultant HA treated substrates were compared to substrates treated with abrasive only (microblasted) and an untreated Ti. The HA powder, apatitic abrasives and the treated substrates were characterized for chemical composition, coating coverage, crystallinity and topography including surface roughness. The results show that the surface roughness of the HA blasted modification was affected by the particle size of the apatitic abrasives used. The CoBlast process did not alter the chemistry of the crystalline HA during deposition. Cell proliferation on the HA surface was also assessed, which demonstrated enhanced osteo-viability compared to the microblast and blank Ti. This study demonstrates the ability of the CoBlast process to deposit HA coatings with a range of surface properties onto Ti substrates. The ability of the CoBlast technology to offer diversity in modifying surface topography offers exciting new prospects in tailoring the properties of medical devices for applications ranging from dental to orthopedic settings.
Highlights
Hydroxyapatite (HA), Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, a proven bioceramic for coating medical device implants is widely known, for its biocompatible and osteoconductive properties, and for its increased mechanical properties when applied to bio-inert metals for orthopedic use [1,2,3,4]
The objective of this study is to demonstrate the use of apatitic abrasives in the treatment of Ti substrates using both the CoBlast technique and a control microblast surface
This study demonstrates onstrates that by employing differing grades of MCD abrasive in the CoBlast process, greater control over surface topography can be achieved, which offers the capability to improve bone-implant contact in vivo
Summary
Hydroxyapatite (HA), Ca10(PO4)6(OH), a proven bioceramic for coating medical device implants is widely known, for its biocompatible and osteoconductive properties, and for its increased mechanical properties when applied to bio-inert metals for orthopedic use [1,2,3,4]. Implant surface modifications are often required in order to prescribe a particular surface roughness and increase surface area for osteoblast attachment, as well as to enhance the bioactive and osteoconductive properties of the underlying substrate. Such surface treatment methods include sand- or grit-blasting using abrasives, chemical treatments and deposition of calcium phosphate (CaP) coatings [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. A number of other HA coating deposition techniques have been employed to confer a bioactive layer onto metallic and other inert substrates including plasma spraying, which is one of the most common types of coating process for the generation of CaP thin films [3,4,9,10,11,12,13,14] and alternative deposition processes including pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [15], radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering [16], sol-gel immersion techniques, and electrophoretic deposition [17]
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