Abstract
Bioactive nano‐titania ceramics with excellent biomechanical compatibility and bioactivity were prepared by using hydroxyapatite (HA) additive as grain growth inhibitor with different contents. After sintered at 1000 °C with pressureless sintering method, the grain size of nano‐titania ceramic was less than 70 nm. Mechanical test results showed that compressive strengths of the nano ceramics were from 137.5 to 275.6 MPa, elastic moduli from 7 to 8 GPa, and bending strengths from 38.67 to 111.96 MPa by increasing HA additive content from 1 to 20%. The mechanical properties of nano‐titania ceramics were analogous to that of the human bone. The content of HA additive played an important role in adjusting the grain/particle size of nano‐titania ceramics, which had a great effect on the osteoblasts proliferation in the cell culture experiments. The cell culture experiments also demonstrated that the bioactive HA additive itself also had a great effect on the cytocompatibility of the nano‐titania ceramics. The results of the present study indicated that the content of HA additive not only had effect on the bioactivity of the nano‐titania ceramics because of the bioactivity of the additive itself, but also had effect both on the biomechanical compatibility and bioactivity of the nano‐titania ceramics by adjusting the grain/particle size of the ceramics. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 2008