Synthesis of nanophase hydroxyapatite/collagen composite

摘要

One of the most important objectives in biomaterials science is the development of new materials for bone substitution. It has been found that hydroxyapatite (HAp), which is the most widely studied bioceramic, has an excellent biocompatibility and a certain degree of bioactivity [1,2], However, HAp is limited in its use because it is brittle compared with natural bone. In order to improve the toughness and bioactivity of bone substitution materials, biocom-posites made of HAp and biocompatible organic components or bioactive glass have been developed in recent years [3-10]. Among these materials, HAp/collagen composite is of special interest be-cause it mimics the composition of natural bone [7-10]. Preliminary study reveals that this composite has a better osteo-inductive capacity in cell culture than monolithic HAp [9]. So far, HAp/collagen composite is still at the initial stage of development. It is well known that HAp is nanometre sized and deposits in an orderly way on the collagen matrix in natural bone. However, with the synthetic methods reported, it is not easy to obtain either a uniformly mixed composite [7], or a fine crystal sized material [8-10], while these two factors are important to the bioactivity of the composite [2], Therefore, new methods are needed to obtain an HAp/collagen composite which mimics not only the composition but also the microstructure of natural bone. This letter reports a new preparation method of HAp/ collagen composite in which nanometre sized HAp is homogeneously dispersed in collagen matrix. The results of biological testing will be published separ-ately.