Preparation and characterization of chitosan-silver/hydroxyapatite composite coatings onTiO2 nanotube for biomedical applications

•Chitosan/silver-doped hydroxyapatite biocomposite coating was successfully deposited on anodized Ti by electrochemical deposition.•The chemical state of silver in the synthesized coatings was studied by XPS peak deconvolution.•The synthesized coatings have excellent antibacterial activity because of synergistic effect of the Ag and CS.•The CSAgHAp coatings showed good biocompatibility and no adverse effect in cell culture tests. A biocomposite coating containing chitosan, silver, and hydroxyapatite was developed on anodized titanium substrate by electrochemical deposition. Coatings were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and polarisation studies. Results showed that the prepared coatings had compact and dense morphology with a thickness of 6.2±0.7μm and that silver was evenly distributed. Testing the prepared coatings with Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains exhibited antibacterial activity because of the synergistic effect of silver and chitosan. The prepared coatings were also found to be nontoxic to MC3T3-E1 cells. These results suggested that chitosan/silver-hydroxyapatite biocomposite coatings can prevent the bacterial infection of implants.