Electrophoretic Deposition Performance of Hydroxyapatite Coating on Titanium Alloys for Orthopedic Implant Application

Hydroxyapatite (HA) is potentially used as a coating material for titanium alloys to improve their bioactivity and then enhancing the osseointegration characteristic of metal implants for orthopedic application. Electrophoretic Deposition (EPD), one of the coating methods that is widely applied for coating metal because of its simplicity and relatively low cost, is chosen for coating metal implants. HA coating layer quality can be controlled by adjusting applied voltages and coating time of the EPD process. However, the optimum voltage and exposing time has not yet been known for new type titanium implant such as Ti-12Cr and TNTZ. This work is, therefore, focusing on the effect of applied voltage and coating time on the mass growth, HA coating thickness, and surface coverage that can be produced on the surfaces of both alloys, and also on the conventional titanium alloy, Ti6Al4V, for comparison. The result of this work showed that there is a significant influence of the titanium alloy type on the HA layer performances. However, it is necessary to choose a suitable voltage and to expose time for producing a sufficient coating layer that meets the standard of orthopedic implants.