Effect of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) weight ratio on spray dried apatite-PVA composites

Turkey has the largest colemanite reserves in the world, mainly used in glass and boric acid productions. In order to broaden the current applications of colemanite, it was previously transformed to apatite by a novel method within the same working group of the authors. Natural bone is an organic–inorganic composite where inorganic apatite crystals are accumulated on organic collagen fibers. With inspiration from nature, one further step was taken as an addition to the previous study: apatite, produced from colemanite, and Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) were mixed with different weight ratios, and, then dried by a spray dryer to investigate the effect of PVA content on the composite structure and to see the effect of using a spray dryer on the morphology of the composites. The weight ratios of Apatite-PVA were maintained as 3:7, 5:5 and 8:2. Samples in each step were analyzed by XRD, FTIR, and SEM. It showed that spray dried Apatite-PVA composites were successfully synthesized and could be potential biomaterials. Using a spray dryer and the manipulation of the weight ratios of the Apatite-PVA were effective ways to tailor the particle size of the powder and the morphology of the particles, which could be beneficial for their biomedical usage.