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Biodegradable metallic materials for medical applications have received considerable attention in recent years. The main reason is that they provide high potential for fabrication of temporal orthopedic implants such as bone fixation devices. Magnesium is an excellent candidate for fabrication of biodegradable implants due to its biocompatibility, mechanical properties similar to human bone and relevance for biological body functions. The fast degradation rate of magnesium and its biodegradable alloys in physiological environment limits its clinical application. Another attractive material in the field of biodegradable materials is zinc, which is among the essential elements in human body. Zinc exhibits an excellent corrosion resistance, and inferior biocompatibility compared to with magnesium. Hence, surface modification to form a hard, dense/porous, biocompatible and corrosion resistant modified layer has become an interesting topic in magnesium base biomaterials. Since hydroxyapatite is well tolerated by living organisms and in addition, improves the bone growth, it appears to be excellent candidate for such coatings on surface of biodegradable materials (e.g. Mg, Zn). This thesis is focused on comparison of corrosion behavior of pure non ferrous metals (Mg, Zn) and metals coated with hydroxyapatite, in simulated body fluids. The present approach is the use of modified atmospheric plasma spray technology to produce the hydroxyapatite coatings – suspension spraying. Composition and structure of the coatings and corrosion products were studied by light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive microanalyzer and X-ray diffraction. Corrosion of Mg and Zn samples was monitored by weight loss and determined by X ray and micro-tomography. The application of the HA coating resulted in decrease of corrosion rate of pure Mg. The corrosion rate of coated Mg samples was lower by 27,3 % in comparison with the corrosion rate of pure non coated Mg. Corrosion degradation of uncoated and coated Zn samples was minimal. The aplication of HA on the non ferrous surface appears to be a very promising method to improve corrosion and biological properties of these biodegradable materials.