New bioactive ceramic obtained by heat treatment of modified polymeric
precursors
T. Gumula1, J. Podporska1, C. Paluszkiewicz1,2 and M. Blazewicz1
1
AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics, Al.
Mickiewicza 30, 30– 059 Kraków, Poland
2
Jagiellonian University, Regional Laboratory, ul. Ingardena 3, 30-060 Krakow, Poland
Abstract
Wollastonite-based ceramic (CaSiO3) is found to be bioactive and therefore could be
considered as hard tissue replacement material.
Generally, wollastonite-based ceramic could be produced either by melting of suitable
raw chemicals followed by controlled crystallization of the glasses or by sol-gel method. The
main drawbacks of melting method are multistep preparation procedure (melting, grinding,
forming and sintering) and relatively high processing temperatures (about 1500oC). The solgel method offers lower processing temperatures (they do not exceed 1200oC), however is
expensive and has low efficiency.
New and very promising way that could be applied for obtaining of wollastonitecontaining ceramic is controlled heat treatment of silicon-containing polymeric precursor
with suitable ceramic active fillers. Heat treatment of such mixtures, depending from the type
of polymer precursor, type of active fillers and final heat treatment temperature, leads to
formation of wollastonite-containing ceramic material already at about 1000oC [1, 2]. This is
a relatively inexpensive and efficient method and enables to obtain complex shapes.
The aim of this work was to obtain wollastonite-based materials and to determine
their bioactive features. The materials were obtained by thermal treatment of ceramic active
fillers-containing polysiloxane polymeric precursor. As active fillers, commercially available
Ca(OH)2 and silica nanopowders were used.
The phase composition of ceramic products were analysed by the means of Fourier
transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). The
microstructure ceramic products were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with
EDS point analysis. The bioactivity was determined in “in vitro” conditions, by immersing of
ceramic samples in simulated body fluid (SBF).
The results presented in this work indicate that heat treatment of active fillerscontaining polysiloxane precursor is alternative method for receiving of wollastonitecontaining materials. Such obtained samples demonstrate bioactivity in “in vitro” conditions.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by The Ministry of Science and Higher Education, grant No.
3 T 08 D 02030.
In 2006 Teresa Gumula is beneficiary of The Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) in
Domestic Grants for Young Scientists Program.
Keywords: bioactive ceramic, bioceramic, wollastonite, polysiloxane, polymeric precursors, active fillers
References
[1] C. Paluszkiewicz, T. Gumula, J. Podporska, M. Blazewicz, Journal of Molecular Structure (2006) - accepted,
in print
[2] T. Gumula, J. Podporska, M. Blazewicz, Inzynieria Biomaterialow 47-53, 85 (2005)