Nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite-polyaspartate composites

Biomed Mater Eng. 2004;14(4):573-9.

Abstract

The direct synthesis of hydroxyapatite-poly-L-aspartic acid (HA-PASP) nanocrystals has been carried out in presence of increasing amounts of PASP in solution up to 56 mmol/l. WAXS, TEM, TGA, IR and chemical analyses were used to characterize the structure, morphology and composition of the products. PASP is quantitatively incorporated into HA crystals, provoking a reduction of the coherent length of the crystalline domains. Furthermore, composite crystals display a greater length/width ratio with respect to the control HA crystals, and show a remarkable trend towards aggregation. The broadening of the X-ray diffraction reflections indicate a reduction of the coherent length along the long dimension 002 and the cross section 310 of the apatite crystals. The comparison between the morphological and structural data allows to suggest a specific interaction between PASP and HA structure.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biocompatible Materials / chemistry*
  • Crystallization / methods*
  • Durapatite / chemistry*
  • Manufactured Materials / analysis
  • Materials Testing
  • Molecular Conformation
  • Nanostructures / chemistry*
  • Particle Size
  • Peptides / chemistry*

Substances

  • Biocompatible Materials
  • Peptides
  • polyaspartate
  • Durapatite