• Su, Bo
• Sjostrom, Terje
• Nobbs, Angela

Abstract

With the aim to fabricate bio-inspired antibacterial nanotopography surfaces, nanospikes with varying<br/>dimensions were grown on Ti alloy surfaces using a thermal oxidation method. By controlling the<br/>acetone vapour concentration inside the tube furnace, the resulting oxide surface changed from nanocolumn<br/>shapes to nanospikes with approximately 20 nm diameters. The nanospikee growth was demonstrated<br/>to work on 3D Ti alloy bead surfaces, which means translation of the method to implant<br/>surfaces would be possible. Microbiology studies using Escherichia coli. showed that the nanospikes on<br/>the Ti alloy surfaces has potential to reduce bacterial viability. More dead bacteria were present on the<br/>nanospike surfaces compared to a smooth control and a 40% reduction of viability was noted in bacterial<br/>suspensions incubated with a nanospike surface. It was shown that by annealing the Ti alloy surfaces<br/>prior to thermal oxidation, it is possible to grow vertically aligned nanospikes. This could be highly<br/>valuable when designing implant surfaces with antimicrobial properties

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• annealing
• aligned