A Quick and Convenient Route to Prepare Hydroxyapatite Porous Microspheres

Abstract

Due to the big specific surface area, good flowability and absorption ability, porous spherical HA materials have received extensive attention of the researchers. However, the facile and convenient synthesis of well-rounded HA microspheres with a porous structure is rarely reported. What’s more, the size of HA microspheres was usually less than 10 μm. In this study, by employing hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) as the pH regulator, hydroxyapatite (HA) microspheres with good uniformity and a diameter of 30-150 μm are successfully fabricated by a one-step hydrothermal homogeneous precipitation method. To our knowledge, the synthesis of such HA microspheres by using HMT has not been reported yet. Results show that the initial pH value plays a key role in regulating the morphology of the final products and the optimal initial pH value to obtain well-rounded HA microspheres with a porous structure is 3.0-4.0, especially around 4.0. The obtained HA microspheres can be utilized as effective drug carriers for biomedical field.