Electrochemical behavior of hydroxyapatite/TiN multi-layer coatings on Ti alloys

• HA/TiN films were deposited by magnetron sputtering on a Ti–29Nb–5Zr biomedical alloy.
• The corrosion current density for the HA/TiN films was lower than that of the non-coated alloy.
• The polarization resistance of the HA/TiN films was higher than that of the non-coated alloy.

The electrochemical behavior of hydroxyapatite (HA) and titanium nitride (TiN) multi-layer coatings on Ti–Nb–Zr alloys was investigated by a variety of surface analytical methods. The HA/TiN layers were deposited using a magnetron sputtering system. The HA target was made of human tooth-ash sintered at 1300 °C for 1 h and had an average Ca/P ratio of 1.9. From X-ray diffraction patterns, the Ti–29Nb–5Zr alloy was composed entirely of equiaxed β-phase exhibiting the principal (110) reflection, and the coating exhibited the (111) and (200) reflections for TiN and the (112) and (202) reflections for HA. At the coating surface the HA films consisted of granular particles, and the surface roughness was 4.22 nm. The thickness of the coating layers increased in the order of HA/TiN (lowest), TiN, and HA (highest). Potentiodynamic polarization measurements revealed that the corrosion current density was the lowest, and the corrosion potential and polarization resistance the highest, when the Ti–29Nb–5Zr surface was covered by the HA/TiN film, compared to solely HA or TiN films.