Characterization of zirconia for ceramic dental implant coated with carbonate apatite

Zirconia-based dental implant in Indonesia is rarely used, especially due to low demand. High production cost makes the price of each zirconia dental implant piece become expensive. The fabrication process of the dental implant using 3 mol% Yttria-stabilized Zirconia (3YSZ) as a starting powder, or being synthesized using ZrCl3 and YCl4 precursor were costly and complicated. The aim of this study is to investigate morphology and phase analysis in the ceramic dental implant which coated with carbonate apatite (CO₃Ap). The industrial 3YSZ powder was compacted using a manual hydraulic press and sintered at 1500°C approximately to 11 mm pellet size. Specimens were pre-treated using 9% hydrofluoric acid (HF) before coated by CO₃Ap, while others without treatment as a control. Then, the specimens were dipped into CO₃Ap suspension and heat treated with temperature variable of 300°C or 500°C. The fabrication of specimen using manual hydraulic press creates monoclinic phase more than expected, while SEM discovered that the particle size of the specimen was 130-500nm. In conclusion, the effective method to coat the ceramic dental implant with CO₃Ap was using 9% HF as a pre-treatment and calcinate in 300°C as confirmed in XRD and EDS.