Articles
  • Effect of a polymer addition on the crystallite size and sinterability of hydroxyapatite prepared with CaO powder and phosphoric acid
  • Sang-Jin Leea,*, Ji-Yeon Kwakb and Waltraud M. Krivenc
  • a Department of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, Mokpo National University, Muan 534-729, South Korea b Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon 402-751, South Korea c Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. 61801, USA
Abstract
Highly sinterable hydroxyapatite (HAp) ceramics were fabricated by the addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to a slurry consisting of CaO powder and phosphoric acid. The morphology of the synthesized powder was changed to a more porous structure and the particles showed a finer crystallite size by the addition of PEG in the solution process. The synthesized HAp powder employing PEG showed a higher surface area of 34.0 m2/g and a denser sintered microstructure in comparison with that prepared without PEG. The porous and soft agglomerated powders prepared by the application of the PEG polymer were easily dispersed to nano-sized powders of about 80~100 nm by an ultrasonic process and the powder compacts were well densified at 1300 οC for 1 h showing a fine grain size of 1.2 μm.

Keywords: PEG polymer, Hydroxyapatite, Sintering, Powder.

This Article

  • 2012; 13(3): 243-247