Honeycomb Tricalcium Phosphate Bone Graft

A 1:2 mixture of CaHPO₄·2H₂O powder and CaCO₃ was prepared, and a slurry was formed by mixing and grinding with water for 24 h in a ball mill. After the slurry was dried, it was pressed in a cylindrical mold with a depth of 5 mm containing through-and-through pores with diameters of 300 μm (300TCP) and 500 μm (500TCP). Each TCP was calcinated by heating to 1200 °C at a rate of 50 °C h⁻¹ and holding at that temperature for 1 h. (Figure 1). The details of the honeycomb TCP manufacturing method and properties such as surface properties and crystalline elementary properties were described previously [15 (link)].
Each TCP structure was sterilized by autoclave and loaded with BMP-2 diluted to a final contained amount of 1000 ng in Matrigel^® (BD Bioscience). Next, these TCPs were implanted into rat femoral muscles [16 (link),17 (link)].