Preparation of Porous Hydroxyapatite Ceramics by Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract

Hydroxyapatite (HA) ,Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, is one of the most biocompatible materials for human bones. HA is promising bone substitute material for clinical application because of clinical stability in vivo. Porous HA scaffolds have attracted a considerable attention for biomedical engineering applications. The objective of this study is to prepare the samples to HA scaffold ceramics for the human cells. Porous HA ceramics was prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at the temperatures from 400°C for 10 min with a heating rate of 25 K min-1• The aramid fiber in ceramics prepared by SPS was burned away during firing at 500°C 1 h in air. The porous HA ceramics prepared by SPS at 400°C had macro pore. Average pore size of the ceramics sintered by SPS method at 400°C was around 15 11m in size. There were almost no pores in the matrix of HA ceramics by SPS method. The measured compressive strength of porous HA scaffold was 40 MPa with a porosity of 30%. These results proved that SPS is a potential method for fabricating porous HA ceramics at the much lower temperature than conventional methods.