Objective

Plasma treatment can be used as surface treatment of PEEK (poly-ether-ether-ketone) to increase the bonding strength between veneering composite and dental prosthetic frameworks of PEEK or enhance biocompatibility of PEEK implants. These improvements are probably based on chemical changes of the PEEK surface. However, the aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of different low-pressure plasma treatments on surface properties of PEEK, such as roughness, hydrophilicity, micro-hardness, crystallinity and biological activity of PEEK.

Methods

Due to different plasma treatments, 143 disc-shaped specimens of pure implantable PEEK were divided into 4 groups: PEEK (no plasma treatment, n = 29), H-PEEK (hydrogen plasma treatment, n = 38), O-PEEK (oxygen plasma treatment, n = 38), H/O-PEEK (hydrogen/oxygen plasma treatment with a gas mix ratio of 2:1, n = 38). Subsequently, surface roughness, surface contact angle, surface crystallinity, surface micro-hardness and human osteoblast cell coverage area of each group were examined.

Results

The hydrophilicity, crystallinity and micro-hardness of the plasma-treated groups increased significantly compared to the untreated group, whereas significant differences in the results of the micro-hardness tests could be shown between all groups up to a test force of 0.02N. Cell density was significantly higher on treated vs. untreated PEEK surfaces. Oxygen and H/O plasma treatments revealed to be most effective, whereas H/O plasma worked ten times faster to achieve the same effects.

Significance

The hydrogen-oxygen, 2/1-mixed plasma treatment combines the effect of hydrogen and oxygen plasma which strongly improve the surface properties of PEEK implant material, such as hydrophilicity, crystallinity, surface micro-hardness and HOB cell adhesion.

中文翻译：

---

不同低压等离子体类型对PEEK物理，化学和生物表面性质的影响

目的

等离子体处理可用作PEEK（聚醚-醚-酮）的表面处理，以提高饰面复合材料与PEEK牙科修复框架之间的结合强度或增强PEEK植入物的生物相容性。这些改进可能是基于PEEK表面的化学变化。但是，该研究的目的是评估不同低压等离子体处理对PEEK表面性能的影响，例如PEEK的粗糙度，亲水性，显微硬度，结晶度和生物活性。

方法

由于不同的等离子体处理，将143个纯可植入PEEK的盘状标本分为4组：PEEK（无等离子体处理，n = 29），H-PEEK（氢等离子体处理，n = 38），O-PEEK（氧气）等离子处理，n = 38），H / O-PEEK（氢气/氧气等离子处理，气体混合比为2：1，n = 38）。随后，检查每组的表面粗糙度，表面接触角，表面结晶度，表面显微硬度和人成骨细胞覆盖面积。

结果

与未处理组相比，经等离子体处理的组的亲水性，结晶度和显微硬度显着提高，而在最高测试力为0.02N的情况下，所有组之间的显微硬度测试结果均存在显着差异。与未处理的PEEK表面相比，细胞密度明显更高。氧气和H / O等离子体处理显示出最有效的效果，而H / O等离子体的工作速度要快十倍才能达到相同的效果。

意义

氢氧2/1混合等离子体处理结合了氢和氧等离子体的作用，可显着改善PEEK植入材料的表面性能，例如亲水性，结晶度，表面显微硬度和HOB细胞粘附性。