Electrophoretic deposition of PEEK-TiO 2 composite coatings on stainless steel

Abstract

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) has been successfully used to deposit composite coatings composed of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and titanium dioxide (TiO 2) nanoparticles on 316L stainless steel substrates. The suspensions of TiO2 nanoparticles and PEEK microparticles for EPD were prepared in ethanol. PEEK-TiO 2 composite coatings were optimized using suspensions containing 6wt% PEEK-TiO 2 in ethanol with a 3:1 ratio of PEEK to TiO 2 in weight and by applying a potential difference of 30 V for 1 minute. A heat-treatment process of the optimized PEEK-TiO 2 composite coatings was erformed at 335°C for 30 minutes with a heating rate of 10°Cmin -1 to densify the deposits. The EPD coatings were microstructurally evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was demonstrated that EPD is a convenient and rapid method to fabricate PEEK/TiO 2 coatings on stainless steel which are interesting for biomedical applications. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.