from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Titanium shows minimal encapsulation when implanted in bone tissue and develops a direct interfacial contact with bone. The higher surface roughness of titanium leads to a stronger anchorage in comparison with polished smooth surfaces, but the fixation is due to mechanical interlocking rather than chemical bonding. Treatment of titanium with sodium hydroxide solution promotes a surface modification that induces the formation of a carbonated apatite layer, which produces a strong chemical fixation with bone in vivo. The aim of this work was to study the effects of heat treatment temperature on the microstructure and chemical composition of the surface of alkali-treated titanium, and correlate the results with the mineralization capacity in vitro. The results showed that after the alkali treatment the surface of titanium had a complex microstructure with submicron porous features. The crystallinity and microstructure of the titanium surface slightly varied with the heat treatment. The general observation was that the slight increment of the anatase content at surface level together with smaller pore size promoted the formation of apatite.
Keywords: Titanium, surface modification, alkali treatment, mineralization, bioactivity© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.