Abstract: In order to prepare HA coatings on the carbon fibers, chemical modification and biomineralization processes were applied. The phase components, morphologies, and possible growth mechanism of calcium phosphate were studied by infrared spectroscopy(IR), X-ray diffractometry(XRD) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM). The results show that calcium phosphate coating on carbon fibers can be obtained by biomineralization. But the phase components and morphologies of calcium phosphate coatings are different due to different modification methods. Plate-like CaHPO4∙2H2O (DCPD) crystals grow from one site of the active centre by HNO3 treatment. While on the para-aminobenzoic acid treated fibers, the coating is composed of nano-structural HA crystal homogeneously. This is because the —COOH functional groups of para-aminobenzoic acid graft on fibers, with negative charge and arranged structure, accelerating the HA crystal nucleation and crystallization on the carbon fibers.

Key words: calcium phosphate coating; carbon fibers; chemical modification; biomineralization