HYDROXYAPATITE: SYNTHESIS, PROPERTIES, AND APPLICATIONS

on the occasion of his retirement Hydroxyapatite (HA) has been extensively investigated and used in bone clinical application for more than four decades. The increasing interest in HA is due to its similar chemical composition to that of the inorganic component of natural bone. HA displays favourable properties such as bioactivity, biocompatibility, slow-degradation, osteoconduction, osteointegration, and osteoinduction. HA is commercially available either from a natural source or as synthetic HA. Various methods have been reported to prepare synthetic HA powders which include solid state chemistry and wet chemical methods. For bone applications, pure HA, biphasics with β-tricalciumphosphate (β-TCP) and HA composites have been widely investigated. HA is processed into dense bodies by sintering Avashnee Chetty, Ilse Wepener, Mona K. Marei et al. 2 and sintering temperature, stoichiometry, phase purity, particle grain size