Properties of silver contained coatings on CoCr alloys prepared by vacuum plasma spraying

The silver contained coatings on cast Cobalt Chrome (CoCr) alloys were prepared by vacuum plasma spraying technique. The Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), properties of corrosion resistance, wear resistance and effect of vitro antibacterial on the surface of silver contained coating were investigated. The cytotoxicity of the coatings was performed with L-929 fibroblasts by MTT assay. SEM showed that the surfaces of the coatings were dense, smooth, no obvious cracks except only a few pores. XRD analysis indicated that the contents of the surface were mainly Ag and Cr except a small amount of Ag₂O, Cr₂O₃. EDS analysis indicated that the distributions of Cr and Ag were uniform without any large-scale clustering. The wear resistance of silver coatings is similar to that of CoCr alloys, and the corrosion resistance is slightly better than that of CoCr alloys. The Ag coating had no significant effect on the proliferation of L929 cells. The antibacterial results indicated that the number of S. mutans and C. albicans were significantly reduced on the surface of silver contained coating than that of CoCr alloys. All the results indicated that the silver contained coatings can be achieved by vacuum plasma spraying technique with good surface characteristic and antibacterial properties and have promising applications in biomedical area.