Cold gas spray titanium coatings onto a biocompatible polymer

Titanium particles were deposited onto Polyetheretherketone substrates using Cold Gas Spray technology and a factorial number of experiments were designed in order to study different spraying conditions. The starting powder and the obtained coatings were characterized with the aim of linking the results with the coating process. By means of micro-Raman analysis, it was observed that the polymer was not degraded during the process in spite of the conditions of the nitrogen gas stream. X-Ray Diffraction analysis also confirms that the composition of the metallic particles was not affected. The results show that it is possible to coat biocompatible polymer implants with titanium leading to thick, homogeneous and well-adhered coatings. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.