Study on the interfacial interaction between γ-(trimethoxysilyl) propyl methacrylate and nano-apatite

In this paper, nanograde rod-like hydroxyapatite (n-HA) crystals were prepared by simple hydrothermal treatment. Since surface properties of hydroxyapatite play an important role in its performance, silane coupling agent/n-HA interface has been the focus of the research. In this study, an effective surface modification method was developed to treat n-HA slurry by using γ-(trimethoxysilyl) propyl methacrylate as a coupling agent. FT-infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS) were used to characterize the surface-modified n-HA. The experiment results showed that hydroxyl group decrease greatly after n-HA treated by silane, implying the occurrence of possible chemical reaction. Moreover, several surface modification mechanism was described, including chemical bond, hydrogen bond as well as the charge effect, which are the main types of the interaction between n-HA and silane. The analyses of n-HA/silane interface provide a promising perspective for further n-HA/polymer or n-HA/dental resin composites preparation.