Mechanochemical Synthesis of Nanocrystalline Hydroxyapatite Coating

Abstract

A novel approach for depositing of hydroxyapatite (HA) films on titanium substrates by using high energy ball milling (HEBM) has been developed. It was demonstrated that a heat treatment of the mechanically coated HA at 800 °C for one hour leads to partial transformation of HA phase to -TCP. It appears that the grain boundary and interface defects formed during MCS reduce this characteristic transformation temperature. Also, it was shown that Ti incorporation into the HA structure causes the lattice shrinkage and reduction of its grain size as compared to pure HA, but also promote the phase transformation of HA to TCP at high temperature. It is important that doping HA by silicon, while also significantly decrease crystallinity of deposited HA layer, results in hindering of the phase transformation process. The Si-doped HA does not show phase transition or decomposition after heat treatment even at<br />900 °C. The samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Energy dispersive spectroscopy, Atomic force microscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, inductively coupled plasma (ICP) optical emission spectrometer, Vickers microhardness, Electron paramagnetic resonance.