Synthesis and Characterization of Porous CaCO₃ Vaterite Particles by Simple Solution Method

Appropriately engineered CaCO₃ vaterite has interesting properties such as biodegradability, large surface area, and unique physical and chemical properties that allow a variety of uses in medical applications, mainly in dental material as the scaffold. In this paper, we report the synthesis of vaterite from Ca(NO₃)₂·4H₂O without porogen to obtain a highly pure and porous microsphere for raw material of calcium phosphate as the scaffold in our future development. CaCO₃ properties were investigated at two different temperatures (20 and 27 °C) and stirring speeds (800 and 1000 rpm) and at various reaction times (5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min). The as-prepared porous CaCO₃ powders were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, and BET methods. The results showed that vaterite with purity 95.3%, crystallite size 23.91 nm, and porous microsphere with lowest pore diameter 3.5578 nm was obtained at reaction time 30 min, temperature reaction 20 °C, and stirring speed 800 rpm. It was emphasized that a more spherical microsphere with a smaller size and nanostructure contained multiple primary nanoparticles received at a lower stirring speed (800 rpm) at the reaction time of 30 min. One of the outstanding results of this study is the formation of the porous vaterite microsphere with a pore size of ~3.55 nm without any additional porogen or template by using a simple mixing method.