Fabrication and experimental analysis of hydroxyapatite based composite materials for medical implants

Abstract

Abstract Hydroxyapatite is the main inorganic component of bones and teeth. It has been extensively used as an implant material for bone substitute owing to its excellent biocompatible properties. Hydroxyapatite based composite materials shows significant properties in the field of biomedical applications. In our present work, Hydroxyapatite was synthesized via wet chemical precipitation reaction. Then four types of Hydroxyapatite based composites with 7.5 wt% each of Zinc oxide (ZnO), Titanium dioxide (TiO2), Ferric oxide (Fe2O3) and Ceria (Ce2O) via conventional sintering. The density of these composite materials was measured experimentally by Archimedes principle and compared with the theoretical density. The porosity of each composite material is calculated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was carried out to identify different phase. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis confirms the porosity. Energy dispersive spectroscopy was used to determine the ratio of different elements. The hardness of the composite materials was evaluated using Vickers’ hardness tester. The compressive strength was evaluated using Compression test. It was observed that hardness and compressive strength of composite material increased with the addition of Fe2O3, ZnO, CeO2 and TiO2. However, the maximum value of hardness and compressive strength increased with the addition of Fe2O3 and were found to be 7.4 GPa and 406.3 MPa respectively. SEM micrographs clearly exhibit least porosity in HAP-Fe2O3 samples which contributes to enhancement of mechanical properties.