Porous hydroxyapatite coating on strong ceramic substrate fabricated by low density slip coating-deposition and coating-substrate co-sintering

This study aims at developing a process technique, which can deposit porous scaffold-like hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings on strong ceramic substrates. As a first trial, micro-porous HA coatings on strong zirconia-based substrates are fabricated by the following technique—consisting of low-density HA-slip coating-deposition on the micro-porous substrates pre-sintered at 900 °C, and coating-substrate co-sintering at 1300 °C. The final co-sintering process ensures a strong bonding between the HA coating and the zirconia-based substrate after minimizing the mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients by adding alumina in HA coating and HA in zirconia-based substrate. The presence of porosity in the HA coating also reduces the mismatch. HA decomposition during the co-sintering process is discussed.