Cortical bone porosity visualization using mercury porosimetry intrusion data

Abstract

Cortical bone porosity of bovine tibia samples has been investigated using the mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) technique. Cortical bone porosity range from 10 nm (caniculae) to 40 μm (Harvers canals), well in the measuring range region for the MIP technique. Samples from fresh bovine cortical bone were treated, dried and cut into ~ (3x1x1) cm pieces .The aim of the work was twofold: 1-To investigate bone porosity structure and direction quantitatively; 2-To obtain tri-dimensional scientific visualization (SV) images of cortical bone porosity. The MIP experiments associated with SV seem to be a good tool for studies of bone loss mechanisms, bone porosity distribution and bone growth phenomena.

Effect of the calcination temperature on the composition and microstructure of hydroxyapatite derived from human and animal bone

“…This is due to the fact that to reach the lacunae, the mercury has to penetrate through the canaliculi and, as mentioned, the parameter measured by mercury intrusion is the entrance size to the pore (i.e., the canaliculi diameter). This is called the ''ink-bottle effect, and as also been reported by other authors [31,32,38].…”

“…3) which denote the three types of porosity typical of a compact bone: vascular porosity (VP), related to average pore diameters around 50 mm; lacunae-canaliculi porosity (LCP), corresponding to an average pore size of 0.1 mm; and collagen-apatite porosity (CAP), with only a few nanometers in diameter. VP corresponds to Harvers and Volkmann canals; LCP, as the name suggests, results from the osteocyte lacunar spaces and the interconnected network of canaliculi that enables the communication within the bone matrix; and CAP corresponds to the empty spaces between collagen fibres and apatite crystals [38,39]. The results in terms of total porosity and bulk and skeletal density will be discussed along with the calcined samples.…”

Influence of hydrochloric acid concentration on the demineralization of cortical bone

“…In this figure, the cumulative intrusion curves of the samples tested are compared with the control sample (non-demineralized). As it can be seen, all curves present a similar profile, reflecting a significant intrusion of mercury in pore diameters between 300 m and 10 m (corresponding mostly to vascular porosity, that is, Harversian and Volkman Canals; Rho et al, 1998), followed by a range of no intrusion (plateau) and then another intrusion, although small, for pores smaller than 0.01 m. The lat- ter pores correspond to spaces between collagen fibres and apatite crystals (the so called collagen-apatite porosity; Rho et al, 1998;Cardoso et al, 2007). Nonetheless, the total intrusion volumes (related with porosity) present different values, depending upon the acid concentration ( Table 2).…”

Boiled versus unboiled: a study on Neolithic and contemporary human bones

“…The measured specific surface areas reproduce the values reported by Robinson et al (2003), although the degreasing and the washing methods were different. Porosity may vary with diagenetic or pathological factors, or with thermal treatment (Smith et al, 2008;Cardoso et al, 2007;Kolmas et al, 2007;Wang and Ni, 2003;Roberts et al, 2002). Furthermore, micro and macroporosity play an important role in the physicochemical dissolution process of calcium phosphates.…”

“…With gas adsorption the specific surface and the pore size distribution in the range 1e30 nm can be determined (Robinson et al, 2003;Cardoso et al, 2007), X-ray diffraction identifies crystalline compounds (in bone mainly hydroxyapatite) and estimates the degree of crystallinity (Malgosa et al, 2008), scanning electron microscopy reveals the surface texture (Weiner and Wagner, 1998), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy provides the local elemental composition. These techniques are complementary and sensitive to bone microstructure (Smith et al, 2008;Robinson et al, 2003).…”