Experimental study demonstrates high densification of insoluble ceramics below 100 °C, highlighting a liquid-free route for fabricating multifunctional ceramic-polymer bone substitutes.
The cold sintering process (CSP) is a green and innovative method of material densification at low temperatures (<350 °C). The traditional CSP entails the addition of liquid phases as a solvent to achieve material densification through the dissolution-precipitation mechanism. However, it is difficult to realize for materials with low solubility. To address this challenge, a universal cold sintering method without the addition of liquid phases has been proposed in this work. The addition of a special polyester-polymer assisted the densification of insoluble ceramics, and hydroxyapatite (HA) and Al2O3 were successfully sintered below 100 °C, achieving 95–100 % densities in a short time (5–20 min). This achievement can be attributed to the low glass transition temperature and the abundance of active sites (C=O) of the polyester-polymer. The denser ceramics exhibited enhanced mechanical properties, with the compression strength of polymer-assisted CSP HA increasing by 147.3 % compared to the nanoparticles. Additionally, serving as an advanced bone substitute material, HA underwent quantitative analysis using the CCK-8 method and assessed the impact of polymer presence on cell proliferation and cytotoxicity. Meanwhile, a tight bonding between the polymer and ceramic materials was achieved during CSP, providing a generalized method for designing multifunctional ceramic-polymer.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Hu et al. (2024) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: