Development and properties of organically-modified mesoporous hydroxyapatites using organophosphonate and carboxylate moieties

Elaboration of porous hydroxyapatite Ca ₁₀(PO ₄) ₆(OH) ₂ was highly desirable to design biomaterials, adsorbents or catalysts. Partial substitution of PO ₄ ^3- inorganic phosphates by organo-phosphonates led to nanostructured apatite materials with high specific surface area (> 260 m ²g ^-1). Several chelating carboxylates were used to control the reactivity of the calcium ions. These approaches not only allowed the homogeneous grafting of the organic function over the whole material volume, but they can also significantly modify the crystallinity, particle size and porous structure of the resulting hydroxyapatite. As a result, we have synthesized a large variety of modified apatite materials with different structures and chemical compositions that were evaluated in remediation processes.