Plasma sprayed graded titanium hydroxyapatite coatings

A series of graded titanium-hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings have been produced by single gun plasma spray technology, and their performance was compared with that of pure HA coating. The results show that deformed HA and titanium particles exhibit an alternate distribution in respective networks formed within the coatings. In comparison with a pure HA coating, less cracks appeared on the surface of the graded coatings and the shear bond strength was increased by 50-80%. The graded coating with two interlayers and a thin outer HA layer contained crystalline HA, an amorphous phase, α-tricalcium phosphate (TCP), β-TCP, tetracalcium phosphate (TTCP), TiO 2 and TiN; while no Ti-HA compounds were formed. As compared with pure HA coating, the graded coating contained more decomposed phases TCP and TTCP, resulting from titanium catalysing HA decomposition.