Structural and performance characteristics of titanium nitride coatings for medical use after annealing in air

The work is devoted to the study of ion-plasma coatings of titanium nitride (TiN) used in medicine. In particular, the regularities of changes in the parameters of the crystal lattice, microhardness and biological inertness of these coatings after annealing in air were investigated. It is shown that lowtemperature (≤500 °C) annealing did not lead to a qualitative change in the phase composition of titanium nitride. The hardness of TiN coatings on the steel substrate was significantly dependent on the temperature: it was comparable with the hardness of the substrate at 300 °C, close to the hardness of the substrate at 400 °C and had high, typical for technical use values at 500 °C. The value of the potential difference of samples with TiN coating for all modes met the requirements of the interstate standard for dental metallic prostheses with protective and decorative coatings and varied in the range from 370 to 400 mV.