Calcium carbonate shows polymorph-specific bioactivity, reactivity, and Ostwald–Lussac ripening in simulated body fluid which can be conveniently tuned via incorporation of trace elements, such as Mg.

Metastable nanoparticles of vaterite were formed using a simple ultrasound technique. The effects of ultrasound amplitude and duration, as well as solution concentration, were investigated. The produced particles were characterized using standard X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning and transmission electron microscopies (SEM and TEM, respectively). As expected, the ultrasound synthesis process caused the particle size to be smaller than with conventional (magnetic bar) stirring, and allowed for the reaction time to be shortened as the crystallization rate was increased. As shown by XRD, FTIR, and SEM, the ultrasound process also led to the formation of pure vaterite, though the presence of calcite occurred as the ultrasound power was reduced and the pulse time increased. For both conventional and ultrasound techniques, the particle size was reduced with an increase in starting solution concentration. Using this technique allows for reproducible, tailored calcium carbonate particles for controlled drug delivery, as well as for use in composites for soft tissue repair; in particular, when used as the filler during electrospinning and melt electrospinning.

The brittleness of calcium carbonate-based cements, which currently impedes their exploitation, can be overcome by a straightforward polymer-reinforcement strategy.

Calcium carbonate cements have emerged in the last few years as an attractive candidate for biomedical applications. They can be easily prepared by mixing water with two metastable calcium carbonate phases––amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) and vaterite––which (re)crystallize into calcite during setting reaction. The transformation kinetics (and therefore the final surface cement composition) strongly depends on the initial mixture design and is controlled by the dissolution of ACC, whereas calcite nucleation typically controls their recrystallization in fluid batch experiments. Novel compositions are presented in this paper by incorporating organic molecules as a proxy to test their capability to carry on other biomolecules like proteins or antibiotics. The hardened samples are microporous and show excellent bioactivity rates, although their mechanical properties still remain poor. However, this would not be a handicap for in‐vivo applications such as bone filling, especially in low mechanical stress locations.

For bioactive biomaterials such as bioceramics and bioglass, it is generally accepted that, apart from acting as heterogeneous nucleators, it is their solubility and the resulting release of relevant ions such as calcium or basic anions which mainly governs the biomaterial's bioactivity. This contribution reveals that this bioactivity, as assessed by simulated body fluid (SBF), can also be considerably modified by the bioceramic's morphology, i.e., bioactivity is also governed by microstructure and surface morphology. When crystals are forced to adopt out‐of‐equilibrium crystal habit, this simple change in morphology converts an essentially bioinert material, here calcite, into a bioceramic which shows bioactivity in SBF. On larger length scales, already simple morphological changes, such as scratches, can have inverse effects. Limited mass transport into grooves and pits on a bioceramic surface can lead to local ion depletion which, in turn, causes reduced bioactivity of bioceramics which, otherwise, show distinct bioactivity in SBF. This contribution emblematically illustrates the unforeseen importance of even minor morphology changes on different length scales when assessing and designing a biomaterial's bioactivity through SBF assays.