Structural and Electrochemical Characterization of the Zirconia Coating on the Ti6Al4V Alloy in Physiological Solution for Orthopedic Applications

This work consisted of performing zirconia coating of Ti6Al4V substrates through a process of colloidal electrophoretic deposition via hydrolysis starting from a colloidal suspension of ZrClO 2 ·8H 2 O as a precursor obtained through sol-gel. The zirconia (ZrO 2 ) coatings were subjected to a thermal treatment at temperatures of 400, 450, 500, 550 and 650 ° C for 2 h to consolidate the samples, which were structurally characterized through MEB and DRX to analyze the thermal effect of the evolution of the structure of the coatings. Then, the corrosion resistance of the ZrO 2 /Ti6Al4V system was evaluated through the Tafel extrapolation method in Hartmann’s solution at 37 ° C, simulating the physiological conditions of the human body using an electrochemical cell ventilated in open circuit conditions. The results indicated that the Ti6Al4V alloy had good corrosion resistance, specifically in the coating treated at 400 ° C, since it had the best results, obtaining low volumes of corrosion current density ( i corr ), corrosion rate ( V corr ), mass loss and ion release rate (IRR). • Zirconia nanostructured films were obtained by electrodeposition on Ti6Al4V substrates. • Ti6Al4V corrosion resistance in Hartman solution was increased with zirconia coating. • Crystalline phases of zirconia were obtained and characterized by XRD. • The morphology of nanostructured zirconia coatings on Ti6Al4V alloy was characterized by MEB. • Binding energy of the xerogel and zirconia coating were obtained by XPS.