Synthesis and characterization of the bioactive ternary SiO2-CaO-P2O5 Bioglass

Aymen Hadji, Abdelali Merah, Ouanassa Guellati, Mohamed Guerioune

In this paper, we present our results on the synthesis and characterization of silicon dioxide or silica calcium oxide and phosphorus pentoxide (SiO2-CaO-P2O5) glass; by means of the sol-gel method where previous works have used tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as SiO2 precursor, but here we are using the commercialized aerosol SiO2. Indeed, our synthesis of this gel-glass nanocomposite was carried out using the aerosol SiO2, calcium nitrate tetrahydrate (CaNO3.4H2O) and sodium hydrogenphosphate (Na2HPO4) as precursors of SiO2, CaO and P2O5 respectively. The characterization was carried out by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) to study their chemical bonding, structural and morphological properties of the resulting amorphous glass. These techniques conducted us to detect the chemical modifications induced by modifying the Ca/P molar ratio. In addition, the thermal properties of the synthesized gel-glass materials were studied using thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA). The results revealed that the glass transition temperature is around 600°C, with the aim to convert them into ceramic powders through calcinations treatment. The results gave us porous bioactive materials that can be suitable for many applications such as prolonged-release drug or bone tissue repairing.