Measurement of the Crystallinity of Hydroxyapatite Deposited by Plasma Spray

As part of a characterization and mechanical research about hydroxyapatite (HA) plasma deposits for hip prosthesis, we addressed the problem of determining their crystallinity. A traditional normalization method employed by several laboratories is based on X-ray diffraction by a powder mixture of the investigated HA sample with a standard of crystalline powder, namely Al₂O₃. This method is quite unsatisfactory, as very often delivers unreasonable results. In order to overcome these difficulties we investigated some new methods for determining the crystallinity of HA sample, which are based on X-ray diffraction. All these methods provide reasonable results.