Bioactive glass ceramic on titanium substrate: the effect of molybdenum as an intermediate bond coating

Bioactive glass ceramic coatings have been proposed for cementless prosthetic fixation. However, a coating procedure that results in a bond of adequate strength with the metal substrate is one of several factors that has to be resolved. In this work a glass ceramic coating was plasma flame sprayed onto a titanium substrate with and without molybdenum as an intermediate bond coating. The higher bond strength of the compound (20 MN m-2) compared to the simple (6 MN m-2) coating could be due to an increased roughness offered by the molybdenum surface, and possibly improved chemical bonding to the glass ceramic.