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A new technique for preparation of porous bioceramics with controllable macrostructures

¹ College of Bio-Information, Chongqing University of Post & Telecommunication, Chongqing 400065, China, ² Neuroscience PET Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, New York 100029, USA, ³ Biomechanics & Medical Information Institute, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, China, and ⁴ Biomedical Materials and Engineering Center, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China

^* E-mail: yjzeng{at}bjpu.edu.cn

(Received 2 June 2009; revised 31 July 2009)

The purpose of this study was to develop a simple and economic method for the preparation of porous bioceramics with controllable macrostructure. Raw materials, including very small organic foam balls as the pore-creating reagent, wax (or paraffin) as the solvent, and oleic acid as the surface active agent, were selected along with bioactive materials such as β-TCP ceramic powder as the main component. The selected components were mixed into a slurry at 30–120°C and shaped into a green body with a hot die-casting machine at 30–90°C. The green body was then sintered and porous bioceramics were obtained. The main characteristics of porous bioceramics such as weight loss, compressive strength, connection and size of pores, percolation rate of water, apparent porosity and bulk density were measured. The results indicated that the apparent porosity and the specific surface area were large; the pores were connected in three dimensions and the compressive strength was >1.6 MPa. This study demonstrated that the methods used here are simple and effective in generating porous bioceramics with controllable macrostructures.

KEYWORDS: apparent porosity, biodegradation, bioactive materials, porous bioceramics, ceramic biosupports, organic foam ball