Influence of milling on the stability of hydroxyapatite

Hydroxyapatite (HA) powder was synthesized via wet method using calcium nitrate hydrate(Ca(NO3)2.H2O) and diammonium hydrogen phosphate (NH4)2HPO4) as raw materials. Powder obtained was milled using various milling speed ranging from 250 to 400 rpm and sintered at 1300 degree C for 2 hrs. Due to the nature of HA powder that decomposed at high temperature, XRD technique have been used in this work to determine the phase composition of the HA powder and also the crystallite size. The unmilled sample was used as the control group. Results show that sufficient heat supply generated from the milling process, initiates the decomposition of HA phase into β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP). Decomposition of HA starts to occur at the milling speed of 300 rpm, i.e. the formation of β-TCP was occurred at lower sintering temperature. It was believed that the decomposition of HA was associated with the formation of an intermediate phase, oxyapatite. Moreover, the crystallinity and particle size of the produced powder is very much affected by the milling speed and the stability of the HA. All milled powders possess spherical shape particle. (Author)