Effect of MgO-P2O5 Sintering Additive on Microstructure of Sintered Hydroxyapatite (HAp) Bodies and Their In-Vitro Study

The effects of $MgO-P_2O_5$ based sintering additive on the microstructure and material and biological properties of hydroxyapatite $(HAp,\;Ca_{10}(PO_4)_6(OH)_2)$ ceramic were investigated using XRD, SEM and TEM techniques. The $MgO-P_2O_5$ sintering additive improved the material properties and increased the grain size in the sintered HAp bodies. As the content of sintering additive increased over 4 wt%, a small amount of the HAp phase was decomposed and transformed to ${\beta}-TCP$. In the 2 wt% $MgO-P_2O_5$ content HAp sintered body, the maximum values of density and hardness were respectively about 3.10 gm/cc and 657 HV. However, the maximum fracture toughness in the HAp body containing 8 wt% $MgO-P_{2}O_{5}$ was about $1.02MPa{\cdot}m^{1/2}$ due to the crack deflection effect. Human osteoblast like MG-63 cells and osteoclast like raw 264.7 cells were well grown and fully covered all of the HAp sintered bodies. The osteoblast cells were grown with spindle-shaped and the osteoclast cells had a grape-like round shape.