Design and fabrication of carbon fibers with needle-like nano-HA coating to reinforce granular nano-HA composites.

Carbon fibers (CFs) with needle-like nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) coating were first used as reinforcing materials named nHA-CFs to improve the mechanical properties of pure HA. A powder mixture containing nHA-CFs and granular nano-HA (gHA) was directly sintered by hot pressing at appropriate sintering pressure and temperature. A three-phase nHA-CFs/gHA composite was designed, fabricated, and used as an artificial bone. Results show that the bending strengths of the nHA-CFs/gHA composite are approximately 41.1% and 59.2% higher than those of CFs/gHA composite and pure HA, respectively. The possible reinforcing mechanism of nHA-CFs in the composite is also proposed at the end. When nHA-CFs are applied for preparation of nHA-CFs/gHA composites, the internal stress on its phase boundary with gHA matrix generated during cooling of sintered is significantly reduced due to the presence of the nHA coatings. It infers that nHA coatings on CFs might act as a bridge to control the forming of interfacial gaps between the gHA matrix and the CFs effectively. Our work provides additional insights into the feasibility of nHA-CFs/gHA composites as load-bearing implant materials in clinical applications.