Plasma-Sprayed and Sintered Silver-Based Antimicrobial Coatings for Industrial and Biomedical Application

Bacteria are ever-present in many industries, especially food and water processing, and medicine. Bacteria can colonize the surfaces of equipment and implants, risking potential infection. An antimicrobial coating that could be applied to an alloy would prove invaluable in these industries. This thesis suggests using silver as an active antibacterial agent and details the experimental data and analysis of coatings produced via plasma-spraying and sintering. The coatings were applied to cobalt chromium, an alloy used in both industries. The plasma-sprayed coatings used cobalt chromium as a base metal, containing 0%, 2%, and 5% silver by weight. The sintered coatings had a greater adhesion strength than the plasma-sprayed coatings (25.86 MPa versus 24.66 MPa in the 2% silver coating). The plasma-sprayed coatings saw no leaching of silver in sterile water, and the 2% and 5% silver plasma-sprayed coatings reduced bacteria proliferation relative to the 0% (99.9% and 63.4% reduction).