A duplex coating composed of electrophoretic deposited graphene oxide inner-layer and electrodeposited graphene oxide/Mg substituted hydroxyapatite outer-layer on carbon/carbon composites for biomedical application

Abstract A duplex coating composed of electrophoretic deposited graphene oxide (GO) inner-layer and electrodeposited GO/Mg substituted hydroxyapatite (MH) outer-layer was prepared on carbon/carbon composites (CC). The morphology and microstructure of GO-GO/MH coating were researched by Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The bonding strength between GO-GO/MH coating and CC substrate was investigated by shear test. The in-vitro bioactivity of GO-GO/MH coating was analyzed by simulated body fluid (SBF) immersion test. The results demonstrated that electrophoretic deposited GO inner-layer was successfully introduced on CC and could serve as an interlayer between CC and following electrodeposited GO/MH outer-layer. GO/MH outer-layer presented a flake morphology with 150–250 nm in thickness and 1.5–2.5 µm in width, exhibiting porous three-dimensional networks structure uniformly. The shear test showed that the bonding strength between the duplex coating and CC reached 7.4 MPa, which was 80.49% higher than that of single-layered MH coating without GO. The duplex coating could induce the formation of flocculent and chapped apatite after SBF immersion, which demonstrated the in-vitro bioactivity of the duplex coating. These results suggested that GO-GO/MH coating might be a promising candidate in the field of biomaterials, especially for implant coatings.