Double Functionalization for the Design of Innovative Craniofacial Prostheses

Titanium (Ti) is the most commonly used material for cranial prostheses. However, this material does not exhibit the same mechanical properties as the bone. Incorporating polymers onto Ti by combining both their properties is a solution to overcome this issue. Thus, sandwich materials made of two Ti skin sheets and a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) core are promising structures to design biomedical prostheses. The “grafting to” and “grafting from” procedures to functionalize the Ti/PMMA interface are described in this article as two strategies for chemically connecting PMMA chains on Ti surfaces. The advantage of the first approach is the capacity to control the architecture of the grafted PMMA on Ti. Moreover, a method for selectively grafting a bioactive polymer such as poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) (PNaSS) on one side of the Ti and PMMA on the other side is developed. This contribution presents efficient ways of functionalizing Ti for biomedical applications.