Synthesis and Characterization of Porous CaCO3 Vaterite Particles by Simple Solution Method

Abstract

Appropriately engineered CaCO3 vaterite has interesting properties such as biodegradability, large surface area, and unique physical and chemical properties that allow a variety of uses in medical applications, mainly in dental material as the scaffold. In this paper, we report the synthesis of vaterite from Ca(NO3)2·4H2O without porogen to obtain a highly pure and porous microsphere for raw material of calcium phosphate as the scaffold in our future development. CaCO3 properties were investigated at two different temperatures (20 and 27 °C) and stirring speeds (800 and 1000 rpm) and at various reaction times (5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 min). The as-prepared porous CaCO3 powders were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, and BET methods. The results showed that vaterite with purity 95.3%, crystallite size 23.91 nm, and porous microsphere with lowest pore diameter 3.5578 nm was obtained at reaction time 30 min, temperature reaction 20 °C, and stirring speed 800 rpm. It was emphasized that a more spherical microsphere with a smaller size and nanostructure contained multiple primary nanoparticles received at a lower stirring speed (800 rpm) at the reaction time of 30 min. One of the outstanding results of this study is the formation of the porous vaterite microsphere with a pore size of ~3.55 nm without any additional porogen or template by using a simple mixing method.