Hollow carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres with mesoporous structure: Hydrothermal fabrication and drug delivery property

Hollow carbonated hydroxyapatite microspheres with mesoporous structure (HCHAs) have been fabricated by using calcium carbonated microspheres as sacrificial templates according to the following routes: (i) the in situ deposit of carbonated hydroxyapatite on the surfaces of CaCO₃ microspheres by hydrothermal method and (ii) the removal of CaCO₃ by chemical etching. The HCHAs consist of a hollow core and a mesoporous shell. Interestingly, the shell of the microspheres is constructed by carbonated hydroxyapatite nanoplates as building blocks. Moreover, these nanoplates are composed of many smaller nanoparticles with different crystal orientations, and the mesopores exist among these nanoparticles. The HCHAs exhibit the high drug-loading capacity and sustained drug release property, suggesting that the hierarchically porous microspheres have great potentials for bone-implantable drug-delivery applications.