A novel electrochemical strategy for improving blood compatibility of titanium-based biomaterials

A controllable fabrication of superhydrophobic surface on titanium biomedical implants was successfully developed to improve the blood compatibility and anti-coagulation performance of biomedical implants. The electrochemical anodization was employed to form a layer of TiO2 nanotubes on the titanium substrate, and then a hydrophobic monolayer was self-assembled on the nanotube surface. The morphology and wettability of the nanotube arrays were investigated by scanning electron microcopy and water drop contact angle measurement, respectively. From the in vitro blood compatibility evaluation, it was observed that nor only very few of platelets were attached onto the superhydrophobic surface, but also the attached platelets were not activated in this condition. Comparatively, a large number of platelets adhered and spread out on both the bare titanium substrate and the superhydrophilic surface which was obtained by exposing the TiO2 nanotubes under a UV irradiation. The results indicated that the superhydrophobic TiO2 nanotube layers exhibited excellent blood compatibility and remarkable performance in preventing platelets from adhering to the implant surface. Therefore, the construction of superhydrophobic surface on biomedical implants could pave a way to improve the blood compatibility of the biomedical devices and implants. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.