FTIR Analysis of Apatite Formation on Bioactive Glass Coatings on Ti Alloys

The objective of our work is to improve the osseointegration of titanium (and its alloys) used in dental and orthopedic applications. To do this, we have been coating these metals with glasses whose compositions are based upon Bioglass®, which is a bioactive glass developed by Hench et al. Bioactive glasses have the property of forming an apatite layer (and therefore can chemically bond to bone) in vivo. Bioglass®, however, will not coat (it cracks) the implant alloys due to large differences in coefficient of thermal expansions. Thus, our group has altered the glass compositions in order to find glasses that will form stable coatings.