Biological and Electrochemical Behaviour of Zirconia Modified 316L SS for Potential Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Abstract Numerous metallic implant materials have been used to replace various damaged or missed part of the body due to its strength, wear resistance and moderate corrosion resistant properties. However, the ideal implant characteristics such as bioactivity, hemocompatibility, corrosion resistance, mechanical strength, antimicrobial activity, etc are not usually achieved in single metallic implant materials. Hence, the surface tailored ceramics coating onto metallic materials will be a suitable choice to obtain the above ideal biomaterials characteristic properties in a single system. Different phases of zirconia ( m -ZrO 2 , t -ZrO 2 and c -ZrO 2 ) were deposited onto 316L SS substrate by electron beam physical vapor deposition (EBPVD) method. The microstructure and surface topography was analyzed by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy (AFM) respectively. Further, bacterial invasion analysis by total viable count (TVC) and the results showed that different ZrO 2 coating effectively protected the bacterial invasion. Hemolysis behavior was studies and it did not express any hemolytic nature against the test samples. Furthermore, electrochemical behavior of the samples was examined in presence of goat whole blood as electrolyte solution. The EIS results divulged that the coated materials ( m -ZrO 2 , t -ZrO 2 and c -ZrO 2 ) showed higher corrosion resistance nature than that of bare 316L SS substrate. Hence, the overall result\s reveal that ZrO2 coating with three different phases can be used for potential biomedical applications.