β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) powder was synthesized using various calcium carbonate (CaCO3) particles sizes (40 nm- 780 μm) with phosphoric acid (H3PO4) at room temperature (25 oC). CaCO3 was first dissolved in deionized water at room temperature followed by the addition of H3PO4. The mixture was stirred until reaching a stable pH between 5.5-6.5 for 1 hour. The time taken to reach pH 5.5 increased from 12.5 minutes to 1140 minutes as the CaCO3 particle size increased from 40 nm to 780 μm. The slurry was filtered, dried in oven at a temperature of 80 oC for 24 hours then crushed with an agate mortar and calcined at a temperature of 850 oC to form the β-TCP phase. XRD quantitative analysis showed that the amount of the â-TCP synthesized from CaCO3 as the starting material decreased from 81.9% to 20.3% as the CaCO3 particle size increased from 40 nm to 780 μm. FESEM analysis showed that the morphology of CaCO3 as the starting material was not maintained after it was synthesized to β-TCP powder.

Keywords: Particle size, calcium carbonate, β-TCP, morphology, XRD quantitative analysis.