Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2017) 132: 267
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2017-11531-8

Regular Article

Synthesis and characterization of porous CaCO₃ micro/nano-particles

¹ Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), 1650 Boulevard Lionel-Boulet, J3X 1P7, Varennes, QC, Canada
² University of Silesia, August Chełkowski Institute of Physics, Department of Solid State Physics, Uniwersytecka 4, 40-007, Katowice, Poland
³ Vacuum Technology Group, Academic Center for Education, Culture & Research (ACECR), Sharif Branch, Tehran, Iran
⁴ Center of Excellence for Research in Engineering Materials (CEREM), King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, 11421, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
⁵ Department of Material Engineering, University of Technology, P.O. Box 35095, Baghdad, Iraq

^* e-mail: ali.arman173@gmail.com

Received: 16 January 2017
Accepted: 4 May 2017
Published online: 15 June 2017

Abstract

Porous CaCO₃ particles, both micro and nano sized, were synthesized in a mixture of Ca(OH)₂, hyaluronic acid (HA), glycine, NaOH and NaCl solution with supercritical carbon dioxide. The particles were characterized using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscope, Raman spectroscope (RS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) and scanning electron microscope techniques. All these techniques showed that the particles crystallize into only one CaCO₃ structure, namely the vaterite phase. In addition, FTIR, RS and XPS indicated the presence of residual reactive species i.e. glycine, NaCl, and HA. The XRD results confirmed the presence of NaCl and -glycine, which is a crystalline material. Moreover, the HA seems to be mostly embedded in the bulk of the micro-particles. Such materials are promising for biomedical applications such as drug delivery.