Microwave-assisted fabrication of strontium doped apatite coating on Ti6Al4V

Strontium has been shown to be a beneficial dopant to calcium phosphates when incorporated at nontoxic level. In the present work we studied the possibility of solution derived doping strontium into calcium phosphate coatings on titanium alloy Ti6Al4V based implants by a recently reported microwave-assisted method. By using this method strontium doped calcium phosphate nuclei were deposited to pretreated titanium alloy surface dot by dot to compose a crack-free coating layer. The presence of strontium in solution led to reduced roughness of the coating and finer nucleus size formed. In vitro study found that proliferation and differentiation of osteoblast cells seeded on the coating were influenced by strontium content in coatings, showing an increasing followed by a decreasing behavior with increasing substitution of calcium by strontium. It is suggested that this new microwave-assisted strontium doped calcium phosphate coatings may have great potential in implant modification.