Synthesis of tricalcium phosphate at different pH condition

Abstract

calcium element is crucial for bone health and bone remodeling process. its compound is often used as a material for bone scaffold. one of the common calcium compounds utilized in the development of bone scaffold is tricalcium phosphate (tcp) due to its bioactive and high degradation property. in this study, tcp is synthesized from the precursors of calcium oxide (cao) and diammonium hydrogen phosphate, (nh4)2hpo4. the synthesization was set at three different ph condition – ph 4, ph 7 and ph 10. both precursors were mixed at a stoichiometric ca/p ratio of 1.5, stirred under heat, left to cool, filtered and dried in an oven to solidify. it was then crushed to form powders and subjected to sem-edx and wettability analyses. the morphology images showed that the tcp4 was formed as thin-plate-flakes whereby, the tcp7 and the tcp10 were formed as feathery-thick-blocks materials. as the ph increased, the ca/p ratio and wettability were increased. these results indicated that the synthesization in an alkaline environment favored to the formation of tcp compared to the acidic environment.