Surface functionalized titanium with enhanced bioactivity and antimicrobial properties through surface engineering strategies for bone implant applications

Titanium (Ti) suffers from lack of ability to establish strong bonding with the local tissue when used as implant material. Higher level of bone-implant interactions promotes osseointegration, which is essentially desirable in artificial joint replacements and dental implants. Hence, for such targeted applications, transforming the surface of Ti implants to exhibit more bioactive nature in addition to antimicrobial properties is one of the prime research fields in materials engineering. Several surface treatments and coatings that alter the surface microstructure and chemical composition have been widely adopted to functionalize the Ti surface to impart special properties suitable for biomedical usage. The current review aims to present the recent developments and the state-of-the-art in developing surface functionalized Ti through different processing routes with a brief discussion on the limitations and the potential of these techniques.