Very nice question. If you substitute onto HA structure of the Calcium ions by other metal ion such as silver. Then the new compound will be biocompatible and also have antibacterial properties. I hope you will get some more suggestions from others.
You have some options here. I think what can work is to, first of all, purify the hydroxyapatite harvested from natural sources (remove all resiudal organic parts, bacterias, cells and etc - you can find plenty of techniques for sterillization/purifacation), secondly you should be interested in extending surface area by for instance milling of hydroxyapatite (top down approach). Next steps depend on what kind of antibacterail agent you would like to use, it can be for instance Ag+ cations or more sophisitcated organic molecules having antibacterial activity. In the frist case try to immobilize Ag+ on the hydroxyapatite surface by repeating immobilization steps, in case of organic molecules you need to explore a subject related to the surface mdifications. Anyway, you can find a lot or articles devoted to this problem.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Materials