Composite Protective Coatings on Nitinol Surface

Abstract

Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) has been widely studied for generating a protective oxide coating on a variety of metals such as titanium and aluminum alloys. It has however not been studied in great detail for nitinol alloy that is widely used in biomedical applications. In this article, we report the formation of a protective oxide coating on nitinol by the PEO process. The PEO-treated nitinol has been posttreated with Ultradisperse polytetrafluoroethylene (UPTFE) to study its effect on the morphology and protective properties of the coating. The electrochemical and mechanical properties of composition layers obtained have been investigated.

Keywords:

• Composition layers
• Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
• Electrochemical properties
• Implants
• Mechanical properties
• Nitinol
• Plasma electrolytic oxidation
• Polytetrafluoroethylene

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The work was carried out with the financial support of FEB RAS (the project 06-III-B-04-112 and joint project FEB and SB RAS 06-II-SB-04-015).