In situ growth of carbon nanotubes in hydroxyapatite matrix by chemical vapor deposition

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/hydroxyapatite (HA) nanocomposites have been successfully fabricated by a novel method for the biomedical applications, which is in situ growing CNTs in HA matrix in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system. The results show that it is feasible to in situ grow CNTs in HA matrix by CVD for the fabrication of CNTs/HA nanocomposites. Multi-walled CNTs with 50-80 nm in diameter have been grown in situ from HA matrix with the pretreatment of sintering at 1473K in air. The nanocomposites are composed with carbon crystals in CNTs form, HA crystallites and calcium phosphate crystallites, one of most important CaP bioceramics. And the CNTs content is about 1% proportion by weight among the composites in our experiments, which can enhance the HA mechanical properties and the CNTs content does not affect the HA performances. These CNTs/HA nanocomposites have the potential application in the biomedical fields.