Fabrication and Characterization of ZrO Incorporated SiO-CaO-PO Bioactive Glass Scaffolds

Sol-gel chemistry offers a flexible, widely accepted methodology that enables the creation of a new generation of bioactive glass (BG). In the current study, a sol-gel method was used to synthesize ZrO incorporated 56SiO-34CaO-10PO mol% bioactive glass. The highly crystalline structure was composed of small zirconium oxide nanoparticles (ZrO) of less than 200 nm in size. It was successfully fabricated using a hydrothermal method. Polyurethane foam (PU) was selected to fabricate a highly porous BG-ZrO scaffold using a foam replica technique. The physicochemical, morphological properties of the BG-ZrO compositions were evaluated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). In-vitro degradation analysis of the BG-ZrO scaffolds was performed after immersion of the samples in simulated body fluid (SBF). The incorporation of ZrO nanoparticles into the bioactive glass matrix enhances both the mechanical strength and thermal stability. Since the novel formed BG-ZrO scaffolds possesses respectable antibacterial properties against some bacterial strains, this renders it an ideal tissue engineering substitute, capable of reducing failure rates in implants.