Physicochemical characterization of zinc-substituted calcium phosphates

Biocompatible and bioactive calcium phosphates can make chemical bonds with living bones. Improvement of their biological and physicochemical properties can be achieved by doping with various ions that are presented in natural apatites of bones. These substitutions influence lattice parameters, structure and morphology of apatites. In recent times great attention has been devoted to zinc ions that are the second most abundant trace element present in bones. Zinc embedded into calcium phosphate may enhance the bone formation and in addition exhibits antifungal and antibacterial properties. Therefore, it is rational to form structures incorporated with this ion. In this paper the incorporation of the Zn ions into natural and synthetic calcium phosphates has been reported. Natural hydroxyapatites (HAs) applied in this study were derived mainly from pork bones whereas both brushite and synthetic were formed using wet chemical methods. Ambient temperature synthesis leads to the formation of brushite, whereas the process performed at elevated temperature gives HA. Subsequently, attained structures were modified with Zn ions by using in situ or sorption procedures. Phase composition and morphology of obtained materials were determined by means of X-ray diffractometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy-dispersive spectroscopy. Introduced XRD patterns depict changes of the crystallinity of HA with the increase in the amount of embedded zinc ions. On the contrary, no changes of the crystallinity were observed for the brushite doped with Zn ions. Morphology of attained powders, visualized using scanning electron microscopy exemplified structural changes between calcium phosphates conjugated with zinc ions. Many authors report that the addition of small amounts of Zn ions leads to loss of crystallinity and decrease of lattice parameters. Interestingly, upon addition of Zn ions to the natural and synthetic HAp by sorption procedures no crystallographic and structural changes were observed. Notably, upon increase of zinc ions also structure of brushite formed by the in situ method remains constant, indicating no influence of added ions. Our outstanding finding promotes sorption procedure as suitable route to form structures incorporated with various ions that can be further employed as potential implants.