CaSiO-HAp Structural Bioceramic by Sol-Gel and SPS-RS Techniques: Bacteria Test Assessment.

The article presents an original way of getting porous and mechanically strong CaSiO-HAp ceramics, which is highly desirable for bone-ceramic implants in bone restoration surgery. The method combines wet and solid-phase approaches of inorganic synthesis: sol-gel (template) technology to produce the amorphous xonotlite (CaSiO·2OH) as the raw material, followed by its spark plasma sintering-reactive synthesis (SPS-RS) into ceramics. Formation of both crystalline wollastonite (CaSiO) and hydroxyapatite (Ca(PO)(OH)) occurs "in situ" under SPS conditions, which is the main novelty of the method, due to combining the solid-phase transitions of the amorphous xonotlite with the chemical reaction within the powder mixture between CaO and CaHPO.

SPS technique for ionizing radiation source fabrication based on dense cesium-containing core.

The work presents a novel method for fabrication of the high-quality ionizing radiation source (IRS), which is promising to replace unsafe commercial products based on CsCl prohibited by IAEA. Spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique has been applied to produce dense ceramic and glass-ceramic matrixes from Cs-containing (˜13.5 wt.