Modelling of flame temperature of solution combustion synthesis of nanocrystalline calcium hydroxyapatite material and its parametric optimization

Hydroxyapatite (HAp), an important bio-ceramic was successfully synthesized by combustion in the aqueous system containing calcium nitrate-di-ammonium hydrogen orthophosphate-urea. The combustion flame temperature of solution combustion reaction depends on various process parameters, and it plays a significant role in the phase formation, phase stability and physical characteristics of calcium hydroxyapatite powder. In this work, an attempt has been made to evaluate the influence of each selected process parameters on the flame temperature as well as physical characteristics of powder, and to select an optimal parameters setting using Taguchi method. A regression model has also been developed to correlate the input parameters, viz. batch size, diluents, fuel to oxidizer ratio and initial furnace temperature, with flame temperature of the solution combustion reaction. The adequacy of the developed model has been checked using analysis of variance technique.