Electrophoretic deposition of porous hydroxyapatite coatings using polytetrafluoroethylene particles as templates

The formation of macroporous bioactive hydroxyapatite(HA) coatings using polytetrafluoroethylene(PTFE) particles were studied. The porous HA coatings were prepared onto a pure titanium substrate by electrophoretic deposition(EPD) at 120 V for 1.5 min using ethanol suspensions mixture of HA (500 nm in size) and PTFE (1–3 μm in size) particles. Subsequently, the composite coatings obtained by EPD were heated at 900 °C for 60 min to disintegrate the organic PTFE particles and sinter the inorganic HA particles. The calcinations of the PTFE led to the formation of porosity in the HA coating. These results demonstrate a new method for creating porous HA coatings on titanium.