Template-directed growth and characterization of flowerlike porous carbonated hydroxyapatite spheres

Abstract

Flowerlike porous carbonated hydroxyapatite (CHAp) spheres were synthesized by the template-directed homogeneous precipitation method. The carbonate content of synthetic CHAp determined by carbon elemental analysis was about 1.50 wt/wt. FT-IR and XRD were employed to analyze the chemical composition of porous CHAp and SEM was used to observe crystal morphology. We studied the effect of the concentration [Ca] and [P] on ingredient and structure, the effect of urea on hierarchical structure, and the effect of the template on morphology. The results suggested that the lower concentration of [Ca] and [P] was advantageous to purity and monodispersity, that the resultant would be prone to a fancy assembly of big flakes into disks at the lower concentration of urea, and that the aperture could be regulated from micrometer size to nanometer size via altering the concentration of the template. This porous material with the hierarchical structure exhibits especial surface characteristics and has a high surface area, showing potential applications. © 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.