Performance of thermally sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings for biomedical implants: A comprehensive review

Metallic bioimplant are widely used now-a-days to replace a part of human body in a physiologically accepted manner. However, the bio-compatibility of the metallic bioimplant was mainly achieved by the incorporation of a bio-compatible coating on its surface through suitable surface modifications techniques. In surface modifications techniques, the thermal spraying is widely used for modification of metallic bioimplant due to its versatile nature. In thermal spraying, the hydroxyapatite (HAp)-based coatings are mainly preferred because this coating responses to physiochemical environment and adapts itself accordingly. But bulk of the HAp coating give out due to less adhesion strength of the HAp coating and its poor mechanical properties. The properties of HAp-based coatings can be designed as per requirements by reinforcing this coating through hard particulates in suitable proportions. In this paper, the various thermal sprayed (TS) coatings used for performing HAp-based coatings on bioimplant were discussed. The influence of reinforcements on the mechanical and bio-compatible properties of the coatings is also discussed in detail. Lastly, the challenges in the TS HAp coatings along-with the future perspective of TS coating in fabricating of 3D biomedical implants by using cold spray (CS) has also been summarized.