Modern cobalt-chromium (CoCr) alloy compositions, for hip implants, were developed to resist the issues of wear and corrosion; however they still succumb to degradation. While the literature is vast, there is still a lack of understanding of the variability in implant-metal derivatives generated, and the effect such products can have on biological components other than just cells. In this thesis the effect of Co ions on type I collagen (main component of the extracellular matrix) was investigated. The conformation of the triple-helix was maintained, however the time taken for fibril formation to complete increased with Co concentration. In addition, with increasing Co, the collagen matrix became more heterogeneous and cellular attachment and proliferation was reduced. It is likely that Co ions are interacting with a C-O (hydroxyl) group. An overlooked population of degradation products was also investigated. They were found to be highly dependent upon the local environment. Media composition resulted in changes to the morphology, while pH directed the initiation of precipitation. A pH <5 resulted in no observed pellet. In addition, the presence of Co ions in the media resulted in a change of Cr speciation. Finally, an approach is presented for sub-micron (600nm) x-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) mapping of ex vivo tissue. Sub-micron XANES maps contained at least 4 spectra, determined through principal component analysis and clustering. A 5x5 pixel region was averaged for comparison to the 3μm beam approach. Both spectra contained similar features representative of chromium phosphate suggesting that XANES with a micron-sized beam (standard approach) cannot represent the full chemical variability present within the tissue
