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Dental/osseous implants manufactured of titanium (Ti) have become a routine and affordable method in medical practice. To increase the overall safety and longtime stability of the implants further, the sophisticated approaches have been investigated in order to supply the implants with the bioactive surface layers. They have to serve two purposes: to increase the osseointegration capacity of the implants and to reduce the chances of bacterial growth and formation of bacterial biofilms leading to periimplantitis. Plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) is becoming a promising method to introduce functionalized surface layers on a metal substrate. Various PEO protocols have been suggested in order to achieve better biocompatibility of the dental implants and to increase their resistance to bacterial infections. It was also suggested that the PEO layers could increase resistance to corrosion on the surfaces of metallic implants. The dynamic processes running on the surface of Ti during the PEO processing still require efforts to fully understand the molecular mechanisms of the formation of hard and porous oxide surface layers. We and others have already shown that addition of a chelating agent to the bath electrolyte leads to better outcomes in the morphology and functional characteristics of the implants. Here we report in depth characterization of the PEO parameters and the produced PEO surface layers using the bath electrolyte containing another widely used chelating agent, nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) along with potassium phosphate and calcium formate. The results will contribute to further understanding the mechanisms of the PEO process and to establishing routine protocols for commercial exploitation of the PEO method.

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