Microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite with tunable nanoscale characteristics for biomedical applications

Abstract Mesoporous carbonated hydroxyapatite (HAp) with different size, shapes, and the specific surface area has received much interest in various biomedical applications. In this study, we reported a rapid microwave-assisted hydrothermal amalgamation of mesoporous carbonated HAp with tunable nanoscale characteristics using organic modifiers such as oxalic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as a regulator. The synthesized HAp was analyzed to obtain its physiochemical properties using different characterization techniques to figure out its crystallization nature, particle size, phase purity, elemental composition, pore size, pore volume, and particle size distribution. The observed results clearly showed that the mesoporous carbonated HAp with tunable nanoscale characteristics can be achieved through a microwave enabled hydrothermal digester with the aid of organic modifiers. Moreover, it was found that the addition of oxalic acid during the synthesis can make strong interaction with calcium ions which resulted in the HAp along with calcium oxalate phase whereas the addition of SDS leads to pure HAp phase. Oxalic acid-mediated synthesis leads to form loosely agglomerated rod-like mesoporous nanoparticles having 10 nm width and 20–40 nm length with a specific surface area of 89 m 2 g −1 while SDS-mediated synthesis leads to form nanorods bearing 20–45 nm of width, and 55–100 nm of length with specific surface area of 48 m 2 g −1 . In addition, oxalic acid and SDS also help in tuning the pore size and pore volume by making interaction with HAp crystallites during the synthesis process. Thus, oxalic acid and SDS can plays an important role in modifying structural and physiochemical properties of HAp and it can be used to produce mesoporous HAp nanoparticles through microwave enabled hydrothermal digester for different biomedical applications.