The Effect of a Composite Chitosan/Copper(II) Ion Coating on the Corrosion Resistance of Grade 4 Titanium in Saline: Preliminary Results

In the present work, we successfully used electrophoretic deposition to produce a new composite chitosan-copper(II) [Cu(II]) ion coating on grade 4 titanium (Ti). We prepared the coating with an environmentally friendly in situ chemical reduction process from a 2% (v/v) aqueous acetic acid solution with 1 g dm–3 chitosan and 10 g dm–3 copper acetate at 20 V for 300 s at room temperature. We evaluated the relationship between physicochemical properties and corrosion resistance of the coatings with energy dispersive spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, a scanning Kelvin probe, and electrochemical methods. The composite coating contained 2.1 ± 0.1 wt.% of Cu, which ensures antibacterial activity. We determined the mechanism and kinetics of the electrochemical corrosion of the composite chitosan–Cu(II) ion coating on grade 4 Ti in saline solution (0.9% sodium chloride) at 37°C. The surface modification makes grade 4 Ti a more attractive material for use in dentistry.