Calcium phosphate ceramic coatings on porous titanium: effect of structure and composition on electrophoretic deposition, vacuum sintering and in vitro dissolution.

Bioactive calcium phosphate ceramics (CPC) guide bone formation along their surface. This property is conceptually attractive from the viewpoint of enhancing early bone tissue formation in porous metal coatings. The various studies conducted to exploit this idea, however, reveal a considerable variability of the effect. This suggests material- and processing-induced parametric influences. Thus this study focuses on the formulation of model porous metal-CPC materials for use in one-parametric analyses of material factors. Easily reproducible, porous metals with a uniform porous structure and CPC coating are made with orderly oriented wire mesh (OOWM) porous metal coatings and electrophoretically deposited CPC films. The deposition of the ceramic can be hampered by adsorbed water. Subsequent vacuum sintering leads to several phase transformations: hydroxyapatite is transformed to a mixture of oxyhydroxyapatite and tetracalcium phosphate; the underlying titanium promotes the beta- to alpha-tricalcium phosphate transformation; and Ca-deficient hydroxyapatite is transformed to a mixture containing oxyhydroxyapatite and alpha- and beta-tricalcium phosphate. These phase transformations provoke a considerable increase of in vitro dissolution in 0.05 M tris buffered physiological solution.