Mechanochemical synthesis is a simple and effective method to prepare ceramic compounds with nanosize. The present work was aimed at investigating the application of the mechanochemical method to synthesize nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite (HA). The shortest milling time required for synthesizing HA, using Ca (OH)2 and (NH4)2HPO4 as precursor materials was also established. The synthesized samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to determine the phases evolved, functional groups present and to assess the size and morphology of the particles, respectively. Further, the thermal stability of the synthesized powders was investigated by heating to a temperature of 900 °C with a dwell time of 2 h. The broadening of the XRD peaks was used to find out the crystallite size and Williamson-Hall plots were used to estimate the lattice strain. The XRD and FTIR results demonstrated that the complete formation of the HA phase by mechanochemical method has started within a milling time of 30 min using Ca (OH)2 and (NH4)2HPO4 as precursors and the Ca/P ratio of the HA increased with increasing milling time. The TEM micrographs demonstrated that the HA particles are nanosized, non-spherical and highly agglomerated.
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