Effect of the reaction temperature on the morphology of nanosized HAp

Abstract

We reported on the synthesis of nanosized hydroxyapatite particles by wet chemical precipitation method and the consolidation of the nanoparticles by spark plasma sintering. We studied the effect of the synthesis temperature on the particle size and phase composition of the obtained HAp. During synthesis beyond HAp, another phase supposedly nonstoichiometric HAp was also formed as a by-product that can be detected by thermal analysis combined with XRD. Its amount gradually decreased with the increase in synthesis temperature and practically disappeared at 80 °C. Using this nanopowder for sintering, the spark plasma-sintered ceramics retained their nanostructure comprising only HAp phase in contrast to the powders synthesized at lower temperature when transformed products of the nonstoichiometric HAp could also be detected.