Investigation into the role of NaOH and calcium ions in the synthesis of calcium phosphate nanoshells

calcium phosphate (cap) nanoshells were prepared using negatively charged liposomes (1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphate sodium salt (dopa)) as a template by base titration synthesis at various concentrations of naoh and calcium ions. the elemental composition, morphology, particle size, particle size distribution and zeta potential of the products were determined via various characterisation techniques, such as energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometry (edx), transmission electron microscopy (tem), dynamic light scattering (dls), laser doppler velocimetry (ldv) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ftir). the best results showed that stable spherical cap nanoshells with a mean particle size of 197.5 ± 5.8 nm and a zeta potential of -34.5 ± 0.6 mv were successfully formed when 0.100 m sodium hydroxide (naoh) and 0.100 m calcium ions were used. moreover, an optimal ph of 10.52 and a final ca/p molar ratio of 0.97 were achieved under these conditions.