Combustion synthesis of porous glasses and ceramics for bone repair.

Porous bioactive materials with constituents such as CaO, P2O5, SiO2, MgO, K2O, Na2O implanted in bone can activate a biologic response to enhance bone healing. These biomaterials are currently formed utilizing wet chemistry, plasma spray, D-gun, sintering, and diffusion bond techniques. This work investigates the use of self propagating high temperature combustion synthesis (SHS) in the creation of porous bioactive glasses for bone repair. The use of combustion synthesis has many advantages over the methods mentioned previously. The primary advantages are the ability to control the process to provide specified porosity (% porosity, pore size distribution, interconnected pores, functionally grading of porosity), structural mechanical properties, together with rapid production of the material. The focus of this project is the investigation of combustion synthesis reactions based on the reaction system 3CaO + P2O5==>Ca3(PO4)2 and incorporating other known biocompatible constituents into the reaction.