Electrochemical and in vitro behaviour of sol–gel coated 316L stainless steel

Abstract The corrosion resistance of AISI 316L stainless steel for biomedical applications, was significantly enhanced by means of inorganic and hybrid SiO 2 sol–gel coatings deposited by dip-coating. Coatings of 0.5–1.1 μm with different hybrid character were obtained by varying the temperature of thermal treatment from 400 to 550 °C. The pitting potential is increased up to 1 V and the current intensities were reduced up to 10 −8 A/cm 2 . After one month of immersion in simulated body fluids, all the coatings showed a high degree of corrosion resistance and integrity, being slightly better the behaviour of the hybrid coatings. Not any bioactivity signal was observed.