The effect of carboxymethyl inulin on the hydroxyapatite crystallisation

Hydroxyapatite (HAP), or Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, has been widely considered as one of the most important bioceramics for medical and dental applications such as dental implants, orthopaedics, surgery and drug delivery systems due to its biocompatibility and chemical and biological affinity with bone tissue. Up to now, many methods such as sol?gel, homogeneous precipitation, hydrothermal ,mechano-chemical, spray dry and combustion synthesis methods have been developed to prepare HAP powders.In this work, wet chemical process was usually used to prepare HAP powders because it is easy to operate and need not any expensive equipments. However, it needs highly qualified and controlled parameters such as nature and composition of the starting materials, pH and temperature of the solutions prepared to obtain HAP monophase.In the present work, the effect of a biodegradable, environmentally friendly polysaccharide-based polycarboxylate, carboxymethyl inulin (CMI), on the growth kinetics of hydroxyapatite was studied by seeding stable supersaturated calcium phosphate solutions with crystals. The polymer concentration and the carboxylation degree of the polymer were important factors for controlling crystallisation.Keywords: Hydroxyapatite, crystallisation process, biopolymers, polymeric additives.