%0 Journal Article %T Preparation of High Percentage <i>¦Á</i>-Calcium Sulfate Hemihydrate via a Hydrothermal Method %A Le Fu %A Wei Xia %A Torbj£¿rn Mellgren %A Mikael Moge %A H£¿kan Engqvist %J Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology %P 36-49 %@ 2158-7043 %D 2017 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/jbnb.2017.81003 %X ¦Á-calcium sulfate hemihydrate (¦Á-HH) is known to be suitable for application as bone void filler. High percentage of ¦Á-HH is obviously needed for medical applications, especially for implantation. Three commercially available calcium sulfate dihydrates (DH, CaSO4¡¤2H2O) with different sizes and surface morphologies were used as starting materials to synthesize high percentage ¦Á-HH via a hydrothermal method. The median particle sizes of the three types of DH were 946.7 ¦Ìm, 162.4 ¦Ìm and 62.4 ¦Ìm, respectively. They were named as DH-L, DH-M and DH-S in this paper. The particle size distribution, morphology and phase composition of the raw materials were evaluated before synthesis. SEM results revealed that DH-L consisted of irregular large particles, while DH-M and DH-S were composed of plate-like particles with some small ones. High percentage HH can be obtained with proper synthesis parameters by hydrothermal method, specifically, 105 &deg;C/90 min for DH-L (achieving 98.8% HH), 105&deg;C/30 min for DH-M (achieving 96.7% HH) and 100