ABSTRACT
Porous calcium polyphosphate (CPP) has shown promise of tissue engineered implant application because of the biocompatibility and biodegradation. CPP with different polymerization degree were prepared by controlling the calcining time, and its polymerization degree could be calculated by developed method in this paper. Different crystal types CPP were prepared by quenching from the melt and crystallization of amorphous CPP. From the in vitro degradation, carried out in Tris-HCl buffer, the degradation velocity of CPP was controllable. The weight loss of CPP with different polymerization degrees and crystal types were different. With the increasing of polymerization degree, the weight loss during the degradation was decreasing, contrarily the strength of CPP was increasing. The amorphous CPP could degrade completely in 17 days while gamma-CPP do completely in 25 days. The degradation velocity beta-CPP and alpha-CPP was slower than gamma-CPP and the weight loss was about 12% and 5% respectively. The results of this study indicate that CPP have potential applications for bone tissue engineering as inorganic polymeric biomaterials.