Effect of Thermal Treatment of the Hydroxyapatite Powders on the Micropore and Microstructure of Porous Biphasic Calcium Phosphate Composite Granules

Abstract

The effect of thermal treatment of thehydroxyapatite powders on the micropore structure of porous biphasic calciumphosphate (BCP) granules was examined. The porous BCP granules could beattained through mixing and sintering/fracturing thermally treated 60 wt% hydroxyapatite powders andcalcined 40 wt% β-tricalciumphosphate powders. The observed Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) morphologiesshowed that the density of micropores (0.1 - 2.0 μm) including interconnectedmicropores of the porous BCP granules mixed with hydroxyapatite powdersthermally treated at 900°C was significantly improved and the composite particles of porous BCPgranules were homogeneously mixed and distributed. This result indicates thatthe particles of hydroxyapatite powders that have a tendency to agglomerate ata room temperature were well isolated and dispersed through thermal treatmentprocessing before mixing with calcined β-tricalciumphosphate powders. The microstructural characterizations such as phase purityand composition of porous BCP granules were performed and verified by X-raydiffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis.