Abstract
The effect of polyelectrolytes such as fulvic acid,tannic acid, poly (acrylic acid), and acrylic acid-based copolymers containing different functional groups on the precipitation of amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) at pH 7.40, 37°C was studied using the pH-stat method. Of the natural polyelectrolytes investigated, fulvic acid at low concentrations effectively delayed the precipitation of ACP. The results on the influence of synthetic polyelectrolytes as inhibitors for ACP show that polyelectrolyte effectiveness as inhibitor strongly depends upon the type and number of monomers present in the polyelectrolyte. Based on the inhibition data the ranking in terms of decreasing effectiveness of the polyelectrolytes tested is: terpolymer>copolymer>homopolymer>fulvic acid>tannic acid.
