PNNL

Abstract

The paper presents the influence of varying CaO/MgO ratio on the structure and thermal properties of CaO-MgO-SiO2-P2O5-CaF2 glasses. A series of eight glass compositions in the glass forming region of diopside (CaMgSi2O6) - fluorapatite [Ca5(PO4)3F] – wollastonite (CaSiO3) ternary system have been designed and synthesized by varying diopside/wollastonite ratio in glasses. The as prepared melt-quenched glasses have been characterized for their structure by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and magic angle spinning (MAS)-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Silicon is predominantly present as Q2 (Si) species, while phosphorus tends to coordinate in orthophosphate environment in all the investigated glasses. The change in CaO/MgO ratio had an insignificant affect on the structure of glasses. The thermal sintering and crystallization parameters for the studied glasses have been obtained from differential thermal analysis (DTA) while crystalline phase fractions in the sintered glass-ceramics have been analyzed by X-ray diffraction adjoined with Rietveld refinement. Diopside, fluorapatite, wollastonite and pseudowollastonite have crystallized as the main crystalline phases in all the glass-ceramics with their content varying with respect to variation in CaO/MgO ratio in glasses. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been used to shed light on the microstructure of glass-ceramics. The possible implications of structure and sintering behaviour of glasses on their bioactivity have been discussed.