Infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance structural studies vs. thermal treatment of geopolymers/biphasic calcium phosphates

Summary In biomaterial field, the introduction of new types of composites presents a great interest for orthopaedic surgeons. In this work, geopolymers which are a family of aluminosilicates were synthesised and mixed with biphasic mixture (hydroxyapatite and of tricalcic phosphate). The optimised thermal treatment causes the reduction of pH to 7 units and favours the expansion of composites. Consequently, the increasing of porosity percentage was induced. These properties offer a good opportunity for applied composite as potential osseous biomaterial. To study the consequences of thermal treatment in the initial amorphous structure of composites some physico-chemical techniques like SEM, MAS-NMR and FTIR were employed. These methods permitted to evaluate the porosity, different links in composites and contributions of different groups of Si and Al before and after thermal treatment.