Fabrication and performances of porous n-HA/PA-6 composite

The porous n-HA/PA-6 composite was developed by the injection molding technique, and it s performances were investigated by SEM, XRD, and IR. The results indicate that the obtained porous composite has inter-connected and uniformly dist ributed pores , and the diameters of pores range from about 100 μm to 700 μm with the average diameters between 300 μm and 500 μm. Many micropores can be observed on the wall of macropores. The total porosity of the porous composite could be controlled by adjusting the processing parameters, and can reach as high as 88. 6%. The interconnected porosity decreases with the decrease of total porosity. Additionally, the porous composite has good compressive strength (1. 1～15. 6 MPa) and compressive modulus (0. 4～4 GPa), which increases with the growth of the mass fractions of n-HA in the composite. The structures and properties of HA and PA-6 in the n-HA/PA-6 composite can not be affected by the foamer and the process of pores formation. This porous composite is a promising material for tissue engineering scaffold materials and non-load bearing bone implants.