Prediction of optimized composition for enhanced mechanical and electrochemical response of Zr-C-N-Ag coatings for medical devices

The necessity of improving the performance of existing biocompatible materials promotes the investigation of new approaches to solve biocompatibility problems caused by low chemical stability and poor mechanical performance of implanted materials. Envisioning those problems and considering the current reported complications of implanted stainless steel 316L devices, this work aimed to produce new Zr-C-N-Ag coatings and to predict an optimal composition to provide the required electrochemical stability and mechanical performance to the stainless steel 316L. The coatings were deposited by dual unbalance magnetron sputtering and characterized in terms of chemical, structural, mechanical and electrochemical properties to optimize their functional properties by means of a second-order response surface methodology. The optimization process revealed that the best mechanical and electrochemical performance was reached when stoichiometric ZrC0.5N0.5 phase is the main constituent of the materials, with low amounts of silver (