Bioactive Apatite-Mullite Glass-Ceramic Coatings on Titanium Substrates
Fluorapatite-mullite glass-ceramics have been shown to be bioactive in the cerammed state and the present study examines how they may be deposited on biomedical-grade titanium alloy substrates for orthopaedic applications. A simple deposition route was used for initial application of the material in the glassy state and it was then cerammed in-situ. This cheap and non-line-of-sight route produces well adherent coatings by virtue of a reaction between the coating and substrate during the ceramming step. Several characterization techniques including DSC and XRD have been used to determine the crystallization behaviour of the glass-ceramic ex-situ and electron microscopical techniques have been used to characterize glass-ceramic microstructures and the nature of the coating-substrate interfacial region.