Behaviour of alkali bonded silicon carbide foams in modified synthetic body fluid

Alkali bonded SiC based (90wt%) foams were prepared exploiting the ability of impurities of metallic silicon present in the SiC powder to develop hydrogen gas during the synthesis, thus inducing the formation of interconnected ultra-macropores, needed for bone in-growth. A treatment into a simulated body fluid enriched with Sr2+ was exploited to nucleate substituted biomimetic calciumphosphates onto the material in order to preliminarily study the material potentialities for bone substitution