The Synthesis and Characterization of Biopolymer-Bioceramic Composites

The preparation and characterisation of hydroxyapatite and polymer (polylactide and polyethylene) composite as biomaterials will be investigated in our work. Human face diseases and accidents since they were born. Bone substitutes are often required to replace damaged tissue due to disease, trauma or surgery. Artificial bones do not exhibit the physiological or mechanical characteristics with the true bone. Materials that are used in the human body have two basic criteria: biocompatibility and biofunctionality. Some biomaterials that have either mechanical or biological properties are not suitable for bone substitutions. The use of many metals for artificial body part cause some problems, which are corrosion and mechanical properties. The developments of the material properties that are used in biomedical applications are important.

Bone is a living organism which is a composite material made up of collagen protein fibers threading through hydroxyapatite (HA). Ceramics as calcium phosphatase (HA, b -TCP) used as a biomedical material. Besides being biocompatible and non-toxic, this material exhibits unique osteoconductive properties. However, hydroxyapatite did not have mechanical properties necessary for this type of application. Nowadays, the developing of mechanical properties of the ceramic/polymer composite as the biomaterials have been investigated. Ceramic/polymer composites have some advantages over pure ceramics and polymers. Recently ceramic/polymer composite with polylactide as the polymer phase has attracted great attention due to favourable characteristics of polylactide.

The preparation and characterisation of polymer/ ceramic composite system has been studied on last decay. For this reason, many parameters of this study can be investigated. In our study, commercial HA powder and the HA powder which is produced by our laboratory will be used. The composites will be prepared by two different methods; solvent method and thermal kneading method. The mechanical and micro structural properties of preparing different two types HA composite from these two methods will be compared. The change of microstructural properties of obtained composites will be determined in simulated body fluid as a function of time.