The sintering behavior of a commercial HA and synthesized HA was investigated over the temperature range of 700 oC to 1400 oC in terms of phase stability, bulk density, Young's modulus and Vickers hardness. In the present research, a wet chemical precipitation reaction was successfully employed to synthesize a submicron, highly crystalline, high purity and single phase stoichiometric HA powder that is highly sinteractive particularly at low temperature regimes below 1100 oC. It has been revealed that the sinterability of the synthesized HA was significantly greater than that of the commercial HA. The temperature for the onset of sintering and the temperature required to achieve densities above 98% of theoretical value were approximately 150 oC lower for the synthesized HA than the equivalent commercial HA. Nevertheless, decomposition of HA phase upon sintering was not observed in the present work for both powders.
Keywords: Hydroxyapatite, Wet chemical method, Sintering, Mechanical properties.