Chemical stability of grain boundariesin β-tricalcium phosphate ceramics : β-TCP as bone substitute material

β – Tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP, Ca3(PO4)2) is a commonly used bone substitute material due to its biocompatibility and resorption. This study focused on the production of almost fully dense β-TCP ceramics with varying degrees of impurities (Ca/PO4 ratio, addition of 5% Mg). Three methods were used to produce the β-TCP ceramics, uniaxial pressing, slip-casting and isostatic pressing. In this study the isostatic pressing and sintering at 1150ºC for 20h and 15min, resulted in the densest β-TCP ceramics (97.7-99.2%). No significant differences of grain size and density could be detected between the samples produced with various compositions. These isostatically pressed samples sintered at 1150ºC were then dissolved in 0.08M aceticacid solution to simulate the in vivo resorption. It was found that the samples containing extra Mg dissolved slower. Attempts to determine the chemical composition of the grain boundaries were made without success. However, SEM observations of partly dissolved β-TCP ceramics revealed that the grain boundaries dissolved faster than the grains. The study was performed at the RMS foundation in Switzerland