Study On Fabrication And Biological Response Of Nano-calcium Phosphate Bioceramics

The fabrication of calcium phosphate ceramics for hard tissue repair and regeneration is always one of the basic subjects of biomaterials science and engineering. As the main inorganic component of natural bone, calcium phosphate biomaterials have excellent biocompatibility, osteoconductivity and even osteoinductivity. In natural bone tissue, bone apatite, nano-sized inorganic calcium phosphate, orderly deposits in bone matrix with structural defects in its crystal lattice. Up to now, calcium phosphate ceramics were fabricated at high sintering temperature for a long holding time, which would lead to the growth of grain and improvement of crystallinity. Therefore, conventionally sintered calcium phosphate ceramics are not exactly the apatite in natural bone. Nano-sized calcium phosphate biomaterials have the same grain size, chemical composition and crystal morphology as natural bone apatite, which is potential of being a novel biomaterial for bone replacement with good mechanical strength and excellent bioactivity.The fabrication of nano-calcium phosphate ceramics as bone substitute is a complex work with so many related factors to be considered to influence the grain growth of the final product and their biological response both in vitro and in vivo. In this study, the first step is to fabricate calcium phosphate ceramics with different grain sizes. The focus of this step is the synthesis of nanosized calcium phosphate powder, and controlling rheological properties of the slurry, slip casting process of porous green bodies and sintering process of ceramics. The second step is to study the effects of calcium phosphate with different physico-chemical properties to the...