Producing hydroxyapatite from fish bones by heat treatment

The present work demonstrates a low cost route to produce hydroxyapatite (HA) from fish bones (natural source) by a simple heat treatment process. The produced HA was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Elemental composition obtained from energy dispersive X-ray analysis confirmed the presence of Ca, P, O and Mg. XRD analysis has clearly shown that the produced phase as HA. The powders were heated from 600 to 1000 °C and from the TEM observations, large fused crystals (≈200 nm) were noticed. XRD analysis of the heat treated powders have also not shown new phases and which is an indication of the purity level of HA.