Hydroxyapatite coatings for biomedical applications deposited by different thermal spray techniques

Abstract Thermally sprayed hydroxyapatite (HAp) coatings are widely used for various biomedical applications due to the fact that HAp is a bioactive, osteoconductive material capable of forming a direct and firm biological fixation with surrounding bone tissue. Bioceramic coatings based on nanoscale HAp suspension and microscale HAp powder were thermally sprayed on Ti plates by high-velocity suspension flame spraying (HVSFS) technique and atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) as well as high velocity oxy fuel spraying (HVOF) technique. HVSFS is a novel thermal spray process developed at IMTCCC, for direct processing of submicron and nano-sized particles dispersed in a liquid feedstock. The deposited coatings were mechanically characterized including surface roughness, micro hardness and coating porosity. The bond strength of the layer composites were analyzed by the pull-off method and compared for the different spray techniques. Phase content and crystallinity of the coatings were evaluated using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The coating composite specimen and initial feedstock were further analysed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and rheology analysis.