Relationships involving metastable equilibrium solubility, surface complexes, and crystallite disorder with...

Previous studies have shown that the metastable equilibrium solubility (MES) behavior of carbonated apatites (CAPs) may be described by a surface complex with the hydroxyapatite (HAP) stoichiometry in the absence of solution fluoride and by that with the fluorapatite (FAP) stoichiometry when appreciable solution fluoride is present. Studies have also shown that the magnitude of the MES is directly related to the crystallinity of the CAP. The aim of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between the CAP MES determined in the presence of solution fluoride and CAP crystallinity and to examine the effect of the change in the stoichiometry of the surface complex (from that of HAP to that of FAP) upon the relationship of the CAP MES to crystallinity. CAP samples were prepared by methods based on the precipitation of CAP from calcium phosphate solutions and the hydrolysis of dicalcium phosphate dihydrate in bicarbonate solutions. From X-ray diffraction experiments, the crystallite microstrain, and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the 002 reflection were determined for the CAPs. From CAP MES experiments conducted in the presence of solu tion fluoride, linear plots of the mean MES (i.e., mean pK(FAP)) values vs the crystallinity parameter (i.e., microstrain and FWHM) were obtained that yielded slopes that were essentially the same as those obtained in the absence of solution fluoride (i.e., mean pK(HAP) values vs crystallinity). This parallel finding suggests that the CAP crystallite disorder affects the energetics of the two surface complexes essentially to the same extent and provides new insight into the nature of CAP surface complexes.