The anorganic bovine bone grafting materials have been widely used to fill bone defects in periodontal and maxillofacial surgery. The purpose of present study was to fully characterize our anorganic bone, InterOss (R), by physical and chemical methods and to compare it with another anorganic bone, Bio-Oss (R) that has been commercially distributed in dental bone graft substitute market since 1995. InterOss (R) anorganic bone had been successfully prepared by chemical treatment (NaOH and H2O2) and low temperature (350 degrees C) annealing process with an extremely low heating rate (<0.3 degrees C min(-1)). Commercially available Bio-Oss (R) anorganic bone was chosen for comparison. The physical and chemical analysis indicated that the pore structure, microstructure, phase structure, and chemical composition of InterOss (R) is substantially equivalent to that of Bio-Oss (R). The BET analysis also showed that the inner surface area of InterOss (R) is comparatively higher than that of Bio-Oss (R). Specially, the protein analysis showed that the content of residual protein of InterOss (R) is relatively lower than that of Bio-Oss (R). Based on an equivalency to Bio-Oss (R) in terms of physical and chemical characterization with both higher inner surface area and lower residual protein content, the InterOss (R) can be a promising candidate as dental bone grafting material in periodontal and maxillofacial surgery. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.