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Effects of ZnO nanoparticles addition to plasma electrolytic oxidation coatings on magnesium alloy: Microstructure, in vitro corrosion and antibacterial properties

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Abstract

In the present research, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were added into the alkaline phosphate electrolyte as an additive for grafting the bacteria resistance upon the oxide coatings prepared by plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) on WE43 magnesium (Mg) alloy. The duration of PEO treatment was determined as one processing parameter for regulating the microstructure, composition, corrosion, and antibacterial properties of PEO coatings. The results showed that ZnO nanoparticles can be incorporated into and relatively uniformly distributed within the PEO coatings. Increasing the duration of PEO treatment not only increases the Zn content in PEO coatings but strengthens their in vitro degradation performance in the SBF solution. Zn ions can be released from ZnO-doped oxide coatings, which caused a negligible impact on the human umbilical vein endothelial cells, but significant antibacterial effects against Escherichia coli. This present work elucidated that incorporating ZnO nanoparticles is a feasible and regulable strategy for fabricating antibacterial PEO coatings for biomedical Mg alloys.

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The authors declare that the main data supporting the findings and conclusions of this study are available within the article. Extra data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 92166112), the Project of MOE Key Lab of Disaster Forecast and Control in Engineering in Jinan University (Grant No. 20200904006), the Guangdong Province Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Grant No. 2020B1515420004), the Guanxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials (Grant No. 211003-K), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 21622110) and Project of Educational Commission of Guangdong Province of China (2019GKQNCX026).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shengyuan Semiconductors CO., LTD, Shenzhen, 518000, China

    Deqiang Liu

  2. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of SunYat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Jintao Deng

  3. School of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Guangdong Mechanical and Electrical Polytechnic, Guangzhou, 510550, China

    Zhidan Liu

  4. Institute of Advanced Wear & Corrosion Resistance and Functional Materials, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Jianbo Jin, Yifeng Bi, Junjie Yang & Shengfeng Zhou

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  1. Deqiang Liu
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Contributions

DL: Investigation, Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft. JD: Investigation, Visualization, Formal analysis. ZL: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft. JJ: Investigation, Visualization, Formal analysis. YB: Investigation, Visualization. JY: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft. SZ: Conceptualization, Supervision, Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Shengfeng Zhou.

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Liu, D., Deng, J., Liu, Z. et al. Effects of ZnO nanoparticles addition to plasma electrolytic oxidation coatings on magnesium alloy: Microstructure, in vitro corrosion and antibacterial properties. Journal of Materials Research 37, 2897–2909 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-022-00684-1

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