INFLUENCIA DE LA TEMPERATURA Y LA ATMOSFERA EN LA SINTERIZACIÓN DE LA HIDROXIAPATITA

In This work the effect of the temperature and sintering atmosphere of commercial Hydroxyapatite (HA) powder on its chemical composition, crystal structure, morphology and density is presented. Compacted HA samples of approximately 12 mm in diameter and ~0,3 g in weight were sintered at a temperature range between 900 and 1200 °C, with 100 °C increments, in atmospheres of air and argon. Regardless of the sintering atmosphere, the relative density increased with temperature, showing an increase in grain growth and reducing the open porosities. Additionally, an increase in mass loss was observed, with a higher effect for the argon atmosphere. As it is observed by infrared spectroscopy, the treatment in air allows the rehydration of the material in the cooling stage, while the analysis performed by X-ray diffraction demonstrated that the samples treated in argon showed a higher degree of dehydroxylation and decomposition to β-TCP from lower temperatures that for samples sintered in air