Ethylene Oxide Sterilization of TiN/TiO2 Coated Titanium Implant Material

The goal of this work is to evaluate a common final sterilization technique with EtO by measuring its effect on the physicochemical properties of PVD deposited TiN/TiO2 coatings on Ti-5Al-4V alloy. As the effectiveness of EtO sterilization corresponds to the operation parameters (temperature, duration, humidity, etc.), two different exposure cycles (cool (MS) at 37 °C for 220 min gas expose and warm (SS) at 55 °C for 100 min expose) were examined. SEM analysis revealed that the surface morphology of the coatings was not changed after both MS and SS treatments. In contrast to Ti 2p and O 1s peaks determined by XPS analysis, C 1s peak of TiO2 layer decreased with increasing sterilization temperature while the percentage contribution of Ti-OH in O 1s increased. This affected the surface hydrophilicity and free energy that increased from 47.37 for the control sample to 50.77 mJ m-2 in the case of SS specimen. Additionally, EtO sterilized samples demonstrated decreased values of corrosion and passivation current densities in simulated body fluid (pH 7.4) at 37 ± 0.05 °C as opposed to the control sample. The results indicate the suitability of both mild and severe EtO sterilization methods for improvement of the desired physicochemical properties of gradient TiN/TiO2 coatings.