In situ synthesis, fabrication and Rietveld refinement of the hydroxyapatite/titania composite coatings on 316 L SS

The development of Hydroxyapatite (HAP)/Titania (TiO2) composite coatings on metallic implants have received a great deal of attention during the recent years owing to their superior advantages in biomedical applications. The present study has focused on the in situ formation of HAP/TiO2 composite powders through aqueous precipitation technique. Five different HAP/TiO2 composite powders of varied HAP to TiO2 ratios has been synthesized in the present study and the results were compared with the stoichiometric HAP, Rutile TiO2 and Anatase TiO2 which also have been synthesized by adapting a similar synthetic procedure. All the synthesized powders have been analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques. Rietveld Refinement technique has been employed to generate quantitative information about the structural characteristics and phase content in all the powder samples. Further, the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method has been employed to fabricate HAP/TiO2 composite coatings on 316 L SS and the resultant coatings were analyzed for its quantitative structural characteristics. The results from the present investigation has confirmed that concentration of TiO2 in the HAP/TiO2 composites and heat treatment temperatures have played a major role in the degradation of HAP to β-Tricalcium phosphate and also in the conversion of Anatase to Rutile TiO2 phase.