The crystallinity and porosity of all-inorganic dodecatungstophosphate M3PW12O40 (M=Cs, NH4, Ag, denoted as MPW) particles are controlled by the changes in the synthetic temperatures and countercations. The MPW particles can be classified into three groups by the crystallinity and porosity: (i) mesoporous "disordered" aggregates, (ii) microporous "self-organized" aggregates, and (iii) nonporous single crystals. The formation and growth mechanism of MPW particles is expressed by three steps: formation of nanocrystallites, assembly of the nanocrystallites to form aggregates, and the growth of aggregates by the attachment of nanocrystallites. The time courses of the turbidity of the synthetic solution, the concentration of the nanocrystallites, and the average particle sizes of MPW particles are well reproduced by the calculation based on the mechanism.

A recently developed "GRAPE(®) technology" provides titanium or titanium alloy implants with spontaneous apatite-forming ability in vitro, which requires properly designed gaps and optimum heat treatment in air. In this study, titanium alloy and commercially pure (cp) titanium substrates were thermally oxidized in air before aligning pairs of specimens in the GRAPE(®) set-up, i.e., titanium alloy and cp titanium substrates were aligned parallel to each other with optimum gap width (spatial design). A liquid phase deposition (LPD) technique was employed for titania coatings on titanium alloy substrate. Then, they were soaked in Kokubo's simulated body fluid (SBF, pH 7.4, 36.5 °C) for 7 days to confirm the in vitro apatite formation on the substrates under the specific spatial design. Anatase-type titania coatings fabricated by using LPD technique led to the deposition of apatite particles within 7 days and showed apatite X-ray diffraction. On the other hand, thermally oxidized titanium alloy substrate in air and non-treated specimens did not show any apatite X-ray diffraction. These results indicated that the heterogeneous nucleation of apatite induced on anatase-type titania coating prepared by LPD technique when it was aligned parallel to thermally oxidized cp titanium substrate with optimum gap width.

Yoshioka (2019) Accelerated induction of invitro apatite formation by parallel alignment of hydrothermally oxidized titanium substrates separated by sub-millimeter gaps,