Preparation of porous hydroxyapatite and its application in Pb ions effective removal.

Porous hydroxyapatite (HA) matrices with high porosity were prepared through a high temperature sintering method by using HA powder as raw material, polystyrene (PS) microspheres as pore-forming agents and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution as adhesive. The characterization of HA was carried out by a series of techniques including XRD, FT-IR, FESEM and BET, and showed that the morphology and structure of porous HA material were closely related to the amount of PS and PVA. The adsorption capability for Cu2+, Cd2+ and Pb2+ in aqueous solution showed that the porous HA possessed a selective and strong uptake of Pb2+ ions and the adsorption efficiency reached 99.8% in 10 min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]