Lab talk
Jan 26, 2009
Nanostructure-related thermal stability and bioactivity
Due to its special mechanical and chemical properties Ti6Al4V alloy has become one of the most important biomedical alloys used for artificial hip joints and dental implants. A big drawback is that the alloy could not bond chemically to the surrounding bone, which will result in a bone resorption around the implant and eventual failure of the implantation. To enable chemical bonds to form, surface modification is required. Anodization of Ti6Al4V alloy may be a simple but efficient way to achieve such a goal.
As described recently in Nanotechnology, researchers in China have anodized and heat-treated a Ti6Al4V alloy to obtain two kinds of doped titania nanostructures, i.e., nanotubes and irregular nanopores. Both nanostructures presented a good bioactivity in simulated body fluids. The doped nanotubes demonstrated a higher thermal stability than that of the irregular nanopores and undoped titania nanotubes. Different in vitro bioactivity was also found for the above two doped nanostructures.
The findings make it possible to further evaluate the biological properties (drug delivery, cell interaction and in vivo bioactivity) of the doped nanostructures. The researchers have extended their work to investigate a variety of doped nanostructures potential for biomedical and sensor applications. And a series of encouraging results will be reported soon.
About the author
The work was performed at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shanghai Institute of Ceramics and supported by Shanghai Pujiang Program (No. 07pj14047), 863 Plan of China (2006AA02A1) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60641004). Yan Li is a master student studying Materials Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Dongyan Ding is an associate professor working at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Congqin Ning is an associate professor working at Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Center, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Shuo Bai is a master student studying Materials Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Lin Huang is a co-supervised master student studying at both Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shanghai Institute of Ceramics. Prof. Ming Li is the head of the Lab of Microelectronic Materials and Technology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Prof. Dali Mao is also working at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
