ZHANG Hongquan^1,2, WANG Youfa ¹, ZHANG Yong¹

(1. Biomedical Materials Research and Engineering Center, Wuhan University of Technology，Wuhan 430070; 

2. Faculty of Dentistry, University of Hong Kong)

Abstract: Hydroxyapatite (HA) whiskers were synthesized using homogeneous precipitation, hydrothermal growth and hydrothermal-homogenous precipitation techniques. Comparative analysis showed that the morphology and characteristics of HA whiskers obtained by homogeneous precipitation were mainly affected by the concentration of calcium and phosphate,synthesis temperature and environment condition, HA whiskers had Ca-deficiency and contained carbonate in the crystal.Although long HA whiskers prepared by hydrothermal growth had high crystallinity, uniform morphology and good dispersability, its producibility was low. The hydrothermal-homogenous precipitation techniques combined the advantages of the above two techniques, long uniform HA whiskers with high aspect ratio could be successfully obtained. The HA whiskers possessed a high crystallinity and a regular morphology; furthermore, they did not contain impure phases and carbonate group.

Key words: hydroxyapatite, whiskers, synthesis method, morphology and characteristics