Materials and Their Improvements for Surface Coatings in Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Materials that have been engineered to interact with biological systems for medical purposes are biomaterials. There are natural and synthetic biomaterials designed for biomedical applications such as supporting tissue regeneration, replacing or repairing damaged organs or tissues, delivering drugs or therapeutic agents to specific sites, supporting medical devices and implantations including orthopaedic implants, cardiovascular stents, dental implants, wound dressing, etc. Surface coatings are often used on biomaterials to enhance their biocompatibility, durability, functionality, and corrosion resistance in biomedical applications. These coatings can modify the surface properties of biomaterials to better suit their intended use and improve their interaction with biological systems. The implanting material must not cause any toxic, allergic or inflammatory reactions in the cells of the body. The degradability of the material should be neither too long nor too short; it should fulfill its purpose and then leave the body. To improve such features for a coating, materials with different advantages are integrated to create functionalised bilayer and multiple-layer coatings. The widely used materials in coatings are ceramic materials like hydroxyapatite, natural and synthetic polymers, nanomaterials, and carbon-based nanomaterials, etc. In this chapter, we provide an overview of different types of materials used for biomedical applications, highlight the advancements in monolayer and multilayer coatings and discuss the techniques used to apply layered coatings to improve their characteristic features like biocompatibility, corrosion potential etc.