Abstract

In the last 10 years, the research has been focused on the biomaterials development for bone tissue regeneration. Calcium phosphate are commonly used for this application due to its chemical composition and structure are similar to the mineral phase of the natural bone. The stoichiometric hydroxyapatite (HAp) is the reference material used in the biomedical engineering due to it has chemical stability and it has a very rigid structure, it has a very low reabsorption kinetic in a biological fluid as well. Additionally, its low mechanical properties limits their application. According to this, the searching to obtain a material as similar as possible to the natural bone, it had been focused to the study of carbonated hydroxyapatite (HAC), which is derived from the stoichiometric hydroxyapatite (HAp) and it counts with important reports in biocompatibility, osteoinduction, osteconduction and biodegradation, making to this a biomaterial of great potential for uses in tissue engineering. The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the information reported regarding the use of carbonated hydroxyapatite (HAC) as implant material; in this order of ideas, the physico-chemical, structural and morphological properties will be mentioned, as well as the synthesis methods, and techniques to characterize it.