Background: The best material for dental implants is polyetherketoneketone (PEKK). However, this substance is neither osteoinductive nor osteoconductive, preventing direct bone apposition. Modifying the PEKK with bioactive elements like strontium hydroxyapatite is one method to overcome this (Sr-HA). Due to the technique's capacity to provide better control over the coating's properties, RF magnetron sputtering has been found to be a particularly useful technique for deposition.
Materials and methods : With specific sputtering conditions, the RF magnetron technique was employed to provide a homogeneous and thin coating on Polyetherketoneketone substrates.. the coatings were characterized by Contact angle, adhesion test, X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope and Elemental Analysis with Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX)
Results : indicated that strontium hydroxyapatite had successfully deposited onto the surface with significant improvement in the wettability value to provide a suitable environment for cell attachment, spreading, proliferation, and differentiation
Conclusion: Coating PEKK with RF magnetron sputtering can provide homogeneous surfaces laying the groundwork for improving PEKK's potential bioactivity, such as surface wettability. Wetting qualities are critical in implantable materials and are used to predict future osseointegration success.