Evaluation of some properties of polyetheretherketone composites used for biomedical applications

Polyetheretherketone is considered to be a prime candidate with the potential to replace biomedical metallic materials as an orthopedic and dental implant on account of its elastic modulus similar to that of human cortical bone. This study presents the effect of polyetheretherketone specimens incorporated with different nano titanium dioxide and nano hydroxyapatite loading up to (1.5 wt%) have been prepared through a series of processing stages involving melt compounding, granulating and hot pressing. Following analysis of mechanical and chemical interactions by flexural, surface roughness and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy respectively. The results showed that the nano titanium dioxide and nano hydroxyapatite particles were uniformly disperse into polyetheretherketone, so the flexural modulus, flexural strength and surface roughness of polyetheretherketone biocomposites obviously increased with the addition of nano powder. On the other hand, break strain decreased with the rise of the total nano titanium dioxide and nano hydroxyapatite content. Furthermore, the best properties obtained when reinforced with nano hydroxyapatite.