Factors Affecting the Pore Size in Porous Hydroxyapatite Produced by Stir-Froth-Polymerization Method

Stir-froth-polymerization is a novel technique for producing highly porous ceramics, in which bubbles are formed by a mechanical frothing in aqueous slurry of ceramic powders. Many work had be done about the porosity, the permeability and the mechanical strength of the porous ceramics derived from this method, but there are still a lot of things remain unclear. This paper focuses on the mechanism of frothing, and the influence of parameters in the mechanical frothing. It was found that the stir time, the stir speed and the viscosity of the slurry have influence on the average cell-size and the distribution of them respectively. The average cell-size can be controlled in the range from 60 to 160 μm by adjusting the parameters.