Wear Resistance and Adherence of Tio2 Sol-Gel Thin Films

MIGUEL ALTERACH; PABLO C. FAVILLA; MARIO ROSENBERGER; ALICIA ARES; CARLOS SCHVEZOV

Seattle, Wa.

Simposio; Symposium: Surface Engineering for Amorphous-, Nanocrystalline-, and Bio-materials.; 2010

TMS

Titanium and titanium alloys are widely used in a variety of biomedical applications due to theircorrosion resistance and biocompatibility. A protective passive titanium dioxide film covers thesurface of the Ti and its alloys in ambient conditions. This natural oxide is 2 to 7 nm thick, and it is one of the principal responsible for the success as an implant material. TiO2 films can be produced  on Ti-6Al-4V substrates by several techniques like, thermal oxidation, anodic oxidation, sol-gel process, etc.In this study, TiO2 films were produced on Ti-6Al-4V substrates by anodic oxidation technique,using 1M H2SO4 solution as electrolyte at different voltages (from 10V to 100V) during 1 min. The microstructure, phase structure and phase composition of films produced under different voltages were determined by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) operated with glancing angle geometry with an angle of incidence of 1°.Different colours of interference were obtained depending on the applied voltage and they areaccording to those mentioned in the literature.The oxide layers produced on Ti-6Al-4V at low voltages up to 50V are smooth and amorphous.Moreover, there is a selective oxidation of alpha and beta phases of the alloy used as substrate. Aspark discharge occurs, at voltages larger than 70V, producing porous and crystalline coatings.Crystalline phases of TiO2, anatase and rutile, were obtained at high voltage. Each of thesemorphologies and structures of the coatings are suitable to different biomedical applications anddevices.