Synthesis and characterization of β-tricalcium phosphate ceramic via sol-gel method

Ceramic materials play key role in several biomedical applications. One of them is bone graft which is use in treating bone defect which caused by injury or osteoporosis. Calcium phosphates based ceramic are preferred as bone grafts in hard tissue engineering because of their chemical compositions are similar to the composition of human bone, superior bioresorbable and bioactivity. In this study, β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) ceramic was synthesized by using sol-gel method. Phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) and calcium nitrate tetrahydrate (Ca(NO3)2.4H2O) were used as calcium and phosphate precursors. The effects of calcination temperature on the synthesis powder were studied using the XRD, SEM-EDS and FTIR techniques. It was found that calcination temperature greatly influence the purity of the synthesized powders. The β-TCP was the dominant phase with the formation of α-TCP at calcination temperature from 600 to 800 degree Celsius. Pure β-TCP was obtained at calcination of 900 degree Celsius. As the temperature increased to 1000 degree Celsius, β-TCP was decomposed to for calcium phosphate oxide (CPO). The sol-gel method has some advantages over other methods, mainly its simplicity and ability to produce pure β-TCP at lower calcination temperature. (author)