A study on cobalt reduction onto HA by electroless plating

Abstract

Main objective of this study is to study the reduction of cobalt onto hydroxyapatite. In this reduction process, electroless plating technique was used where the hydroxyapatite powder was inserted into the solution of cobalt chloride with the help of reducing agent. The process involved different concentration of cobalt which are 2%, 3% and 5%. The process of reduction can occur at pH value ranging from 8 to 9 with temperature at . The sodium hypophosphate is use as the reducing agent for the electroless plating process. The sample was test by several characterization technique such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) respectively for the composition of cobalt reduce onto hydroxyapatite, microstructure of the hydroxyapatite and concentration of the cobalt during the process. Hydroxyapatite is commercially used as biomaterial. In order to enhance the performance of hydroxyapatite, some improvement need to be made on it properties. The cobalt successfully reduced on to HA where this can be proved by XRD result. The result shows that the reduction of cobalt is higher at 5% compare to 2% and 3% of cobalt. From the overall result, the reduction occurs at the optimum process due to the AAS testing where the cobalt element in solution cannot be detected as cobalt is fully reduce on to HA and this can be confirmed by the appearance of peaks in the graph of XRD and EDS. The peak present indicate the element of cobalt reduce on to HA.