Author(s)

David S. H. Lee, Yuni Pai, Steve Chang

Department of Research and Development, SigmaGraft, Brea, USA..

The effect of thermal treatment of the hydroxyapatite powders on the micropore structure of porous biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) granules was examined. The porous BCP granules could be attained through mixing and sintering/fracturing thermally treated 60 wt% hydroxyapatite powders and calcined 40 wt% β-tricalcium phosphate powders. The observed Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) morphologies showed that the density of micropores (0.1 - 2.0 μm) including interconnected micropores of the porous BCP granules mixed with hydroxyapatite powders thermally treated at 900°C was significantly improved and the composite particles of porous BCP granules were homogeneously mixed and distributed. This result indicates that the particles of hydroxyapatite powders that have a tendency to agglomerate at a room temperature were well isolated and dispersed through thermal treatment processing before mixing with calcined β-tricalcium phosphate powders. The microstructural characterizations such as phase purity and composition of porous BCP granules were performed and verified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis.

BCP Composite; Hydroxyapatite; Thermal Treatment; Micropore Structure

D. Lee, Y. Pai and S. Chang, "Effect of Thermal Treatment of the Hydroxyapatite Powders on the Micropore and Microstructure of Porous Biphasic Calcium Phosphate Composite Granules," Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology, Vol. 4 No. 2, 2013, pp. 114-118. doi: 10.4236/jbnb.2013.42015.