Hydroxyapatite coatings were deposited on Ti-6Al-4V substrates by a novel plasma spraying process, the liquid precursor plasma spraying (LPPS) process. X-ray diffraction results showed that the coatings obtained by the LPPS process were mainly composed of hydroxyapatite. The LPPS process also showed excellent control on the coating microstructure, and both nearly fully dense and highly porous hydroxyapatite coatings were obtained by simply adjusting the solid content of the hydroxyapatite liquid precursor. Scanning electron microscope observations indicated that the porous hydroxyapatite coatings had pore size in the range of 10-200 µm and an average porosity of 48.26 ± 0.10%. The osteoblastic cell responses to the dense and porous hydroxyapatite coatings were evaluated with human osteoblastic cell MG-63, in respect of the cell morphology, proliferation and differentiation, with the hydroxyapatite coatings deposited by the atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) process as control. The cell experiment results indicated that the heat-treated LPPS coatings with a porous structure showed the best cell proliferation and differentiation among all the hydroxyapatite coatings. Our results suggest that the LPPS process is a promising plasma spraying technique for fabricating hydroxyapatite coatings with a controllable microstructure, which has great potential in bone repair and replacement applications.

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In this study, the liquid precursor plasma spraying process was used to manufacture P 2 O 5 -Na 2 O-CaOSiO 2 bioactive glass-ceramic coatings (BGCCs), where sol and suspension were used as feedstocks for plasma spraying. The effect of precursor and spray parameters on the formation and crystallinity of BGCCs was systematically studied. The results indicated that coatings with higher crystallinity were obtained using the sol precursor, while nanostructured coatings predominantly consisting of amorphous phase were synthesized using the suspension precursor. For coatings manufactured from suspension, the fraction of the amorphous phase increased with the increase in plasma power and the decrease in liquid precursor feed rate. The coatings synthesized from the suspension plasma spray process also showed a good in vitro bioactivity, as suggested by the fast apatite formation when soaking into SBF.