Titanium nitrides have good tribo-mechanical and biomedical properties. They are employed to harden and
protect cutting and sliding surfaces for industrial purpose and as a non-toxic outer-surface for bio-medical applications.
In this study, pure titaniumwas nitrided using RF plasma technique. Themicrostructural,mechanical, tribological,
electrochemical and biomedical properties of nitrided titaniumwere investigated. The X-ray diffraction
demonstrates the formation of -Ti2Nand the cubic -TiN phases after plasma nitriding. The microhardness of the
nitride samples increases as the plasma-processing power increases up to 1300 HV0.1. That represents approximately
7-fold increment in the microhardness in comparison with the untreated titanium. High nitriding rate
of 0.17 m2/s was recorded for the sample that was treated at 650 W. The wear and corrosion resistance are
improved after plasma nitriding.Moreover, the friction coefcient is reduced from nearly 0.75 for the untreated
titanium to 0.25 for the nitride one. An enhancement in the biocompatibility of the nitrided titanium has been
achieved. The number of grown mesenchymal stem cells was higher for nitrided substrates compared to that
of the untreated titanium. The improved tribo-mechanical and electrochemical performance of the nitrided
titanium can be attributed to the formation of super-hard titanium nitrided phases