Surface porosity and roughness of micrographite film for nucleation of hydroxyapatite

Heterogeneous nucleation of hydroxyapatite (HAp) can be facilitated by physical and chemical properties of material surface. In this article, we reported how effective surface porosity and roughness are for inducing nucleation of HAp crystal in simulated body fluid. Two types of micrographite film (MGF) prepared from assembly of micrographite flakes were used as seeds to induce HAp crystal: uncompressed (high surface porosity) and compressed (low surface porosity) MGFs. Compressed MGF was prepared by applying mechanical compression to the uncompressed MGF. Uncompressed and compressed MGFs have similar surface wettability with the water contact angles (θ) of 113° and 107°, respectively. The number density of HAp crystals on the uncompressed MGF was higher than that of the compressed MGF by a factor of 6. This result implied that surface porosity and roughness were more effective parameters for inducing HAp crystal than surface wettability. Uncompressed MGF also induced HAp nucleation better than a cover glass although the glass had high wettability (θ = 64°). The effectiveness of uncompressed MGF on inducing HAp crystals was as high as that of the SiO2 -coated Si substrate. Our finding suggests that we do not require to functionalize material surface to be an effective seed; a surface with pores or roughness of the right scale is enough.