[Study on a new type of apatite/wollastonite porous bioactive glass-ceramic]

A novel glass-ceramic has been derived from sol-gel process. In this study XRD and FTIR analysis confirmed that the main crystalline phases of the material were hydroxyapatite/fluoroapatite [Ca10(PO4)6(OH,F)] and beta-wollastonite[beta-CaSiO3]; SEM examination showed that the microstructure contained many micro pores of 2-3 microm. After pore-forming, the material possessed good macro porous structure: the size of macro pores was 300-400 microm in diameter, and pores interconnected each other. Bioactivity of the material was preliminarily evaluated in the simulate body fluid. SEM observation revealed that a lot of apatite granules had been formed on the surface of the material after soaking within 7 days. Result shows that the novel sol-gel derived apatite-wollastonite-containing glass-ceramic has good bioactivity. Porous materials have suitable microstructure as well as macrostructure, which make it an excellent material to be used as bone-repairing materials and bone tissue engineering carrier materials.