MONETITE CEMENT
(Dicalcium phosphate anhydrous, DCPA,
CaHPO4)
Prof. A. Cuneyt Tas, PhD June
26, 2013
http://www.cuneyttas.com c_tas@hotmail.com
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The very first monetite
cement, having only one phase in its powder component, for skeletal repair /
oral surgery was conceived by A. Cuneyt Tas while he
was working between May 2003 and May 2006, as a research assistant professor,
on a temporary faculty basis, at the School of Materials Science and
Engineering of Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA.
The proposal to develop a novel calcium phosphate
cement whose only setting product shall be monetite
(instead of hydroxyapatite or brushite) was actually
inspired by the previous experience of A. C. Tas (i.e., patent- and
publication-based experience he possessed before he joined the Clemson
University in May 2003) on developing new orthopedic and dental cements:
1.) “A New Calcium Phosphate Cement Composition and
a Method for the Preparation Thereof,” Sole Inventor and Proprietor: A. C. Tas, US Patent No: 6 929 692,
2.) A. C. Tas and F. Aldinger,
“Formation of Apatitic Calcium Phosphates in Na-K-Phosphate Solution of pH
7.4,” J. Materials Science: Materials in
Medicine, 16 (2005) 167-174.
The powder component of the monetite
cement is a single-phase powder, i.e., Ca(OH)2,
calcium hydroxide. Nothing else! The powder does not contain phosphorus. The
powder is the sole calcium source. The setting solution, on the other hand,
consists of an aqueous solution of phosphoric acid (H3PO4)
and NaHCO3 (sodium bicarbonate). The setting solution may also
contain small amounts of citric acid monohydrate (C6H8O7∙H2O),
if desired and as shown in the below MSc thesis.
(The above cited reference 2 of Dr. Tas shows previous usage of an aqueous solution comprising
both sodium phosphate and sodium citrate as a setting solution again with a
cement having single-phase powder component.)
The monetite cement,
upon mixing calcium hydroxide powder with the setting solution of phosphoric
acid-sodium bicarbonate, represents a robust and simple-to-pursue example of an
acid-base neutralization reaction, and by kneading appropriate amounts of
powder with the setting solution one automatically stops the reaction at the
moment of the formation of single-phase monetite
crystals as the cement product.
This monetite cement
presented a case of perfect separation of Ca and P into the powder and setting
solution, respectively. This was the novelty of this calcium phosphate cement
yielding only monetite (CaHPO4) as its
setting product in a short time.
The experiments leading to the development of the monetite cement were performed by Dr. Tas
and the MSc student Tarang Desai over the period of
January 2005 and April 2006, and Mr. Tarang Desai
wrote his MSc thesis on the same topic at Clemson University.
The below link allows the readers to see the MSc
thesis of Tarang Desai:
http://www.cuneyttas.com/Monetite-cement-MSc-thesis-2006.pdf
The novelty and the amount of work included in the
above MSc thesis was actually close to the caliber of that of a PhD thesis, and
it also contained a compartment of testing the monetite
cement samples by using both rat osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Especially, the “osteoclastic resorption testing of calcium phosphate-based
biomaterials” is very difficult to come by in the literature.
For some of the high resolution microscope images
of the above MSc thesis, follow the below links:
Fig.
3.1, Fig. 3.4, Fig. 3.10, Fig. 3.11, Fig. 3.15, Fig. 3.23, Fig. 3.24, Fig. 3.25, Fig. 3.26, Fig. 3.28, Fig. 3.29, Fig. 3.30
(Figure
captions are available in the above-mentioned MSc thesis.)
There has been one publication resulting from this
work, which summarized the above-mentioned MSc thesis:
Tarang
R. Desai, Sarit B. Bhaduri
and A. Cuneyt Tas, “A Self-setting, Monetite (CaHPO4) Cement for Skeletal
Repair,” in Advances in Bioceramics and Biocomposites II,
Ceramic Engineering and Science Proceedings, Vol. 27, Issue 6, pp. 61-69, Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007,
USA.
The below link will let the readers of this
web-page to access the above publication:
http://www.cuneyttas.com/Monetite-cement-ACerS.PDF
Researchers who would like to further develop this
monetite cement is more than welcome to do so, as
long as they would agree to properly cite the above-mentioned MSc thesis (Tarang Desai, “Development of Monetite (CaHPO4)-based
Orthopedic and Dental Cements of High Resorbability,”
MSc Thesis, Clemson University, August 2006) and the resulting publication:
T. Desai et
al., Ceramic Engineering and Science
Proceedings, 27(6), 61-69
(2007). Its full citation information is given above.
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It is simply unethical to
reproduce and publish this cement formulation and the preparation method in
further articles without citing the above-mentioned MSc thesis and the above
article.
For instance, the below researchers seemed to
consistently forget to cite the above article and the MSc thesis:
1.) A.
H. Touny and S. B. Bhaduri,
“A reactive electrospinning approach for nanoporous PLA/monetite nanocomposite fibers,” Materials
Science and Engineering C, 30, 1304-1312 (2010),
2.) A.
H. Touny, H. Dawkins, H. Zhou, and S. B. Bhaduri, “Hydrolysis of monetite/chitosan
composites in α-MEM and SBF solutions,” Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine, 22, 1101-1109
(2011).
3.) N.
M. Boroujeni, H. Zhou, T. J. F. Luchini,
and S. B. Bhaduri, “Development of multi-walled
carbon nanotubes reinforced monetite bionanocomposite cements for orthopedic applications,” Materials Science and Engineering C, 33,
4323-4330 (2013).
4.) N.
M. Boroujeni, H. Zhou, T. J. F. Luchini,
and S. B. Bhaduri, “Development of monetite/phosphorylated
chitosan composite bone cement,” J.
Biomed. Mater. Res., 102B, 260-266 (2014).