Hydroxyapatite foams produced by gelcasting using agarose

摘要

There is a technological need for porous hydroxyapatite (HA) to be produced in an environmentally friendly manner. Gelcasting of hydroxyapatite foams using agarose as gelling agent was evaluated and the rheological behavior of the suspensions was studied. The viscosity of the slurries could be adjusted by agarose concentration and HA solid loading. These parameters were essential in tailoring the porosity as well as the cell and window sizes of the resulted HA foams. Depending of HA solid loading (24-29 vol.%) and agarose concentration (1.1-1.5 wt.% with regard to water) in the starting slurry, the mean cell size ranged from 130 to 380 urn, while the mean window size varied from 37 to 104 urn. Depending on the porosity range (73-92%) and related with this parameter the mean cell and window size, the compressive strength of HA foams was found to be in the range 0.8-5.9 MPa.