Currently, most titanium implant coatings are made using hydroxyapatite and a plasma-spraying technique. There are however limitations associated with the plasma-spraying process including; poor adherence, high porosity and cost. An alternative - the sol-gel technique offers many potential advantages but is currently lacking research data for this application. Hydroxyapatite (HA), fluorhydroxyapatite (FHA) and fluorapatite (FA) have been synthesised by a sol-gel method. Calcium nitrate and triethyl phosphite were used as precursors under an ethanol-water based solution. Different amounts of ammonium fluoride (NH4F) were incorporated for the preparation of the FHA and FA sol-gels. Optimisation and characterisation of the sol-gels was carried out using, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), High Temperature X-Ray Diffraction (HTXRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Analysis (FTIR) and Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA). Rheology and hydrophilicity of the sol-gels showed that increasing fluoride ion substitution caused an increase in viscosity and contact angle. The dissolution (Ca2+ and PO4 3-rates) rates of the fluoride-substituted powders from the sol-gels were considerably lower than that of HA and all rates could be decreased by increasing the sintering temperature. This suggests the possibility of tailoring the solubility of any coatings made from the sol-gels through fluoride ion substitution and increased sintering temperature. A spin coating protocol has been established for coating the sol-gels onto titanium. Increasing the coating speed decreased the porosity and thickness of the coatings. Bond strengths to titanium were investigated. Fluoride substitution and sintering temperature were shown to be important factors. Cellular proliferation studies revealed that increasing the level of fluoride substitution in the apatite structure significantly increased the biocompatibility of the material. The sol-gel technique may be an alternative to plasma spraying for coating titanium implants. Furthermore it may also be suitable for producing HA, FHA and FA as bone grafting materials.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:564736 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Tredwin, C. J. |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/18785/ |
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