Morphological, structural, microstructural and antibacterial features of silver-doped zirconia/hydroxyapatite for biomedical applications

Bioceramic compositions based on zirconia/hydroxyapatite (HAP) modified with silver ions (Ag) at different additional zirconia nanoparticles were fabricated. The obtained compounds were characterized upon their structure using XRD and TEM, besides their morphological features using FESEM. Zirconia nanoparticles were trapped into HAP lattice for the as-prepared composition, however, for annealed one, zirconia was revealed as a separated crystalline phase. In the case of the annealed compositions, the a-axis was fluctuated from 9.436 to 9.440 Å, while the c-axis changed from 6.866 to 6.888 Å for the lowest and the highest zirconia additives. Furthermore, the crystal growth is preferred to be occurred in c-direction, while the porosity content increased from 21.9 to 33.5%. The surface morphology illustrated as rod shapes for as-prepared compositions, while hexagonal-shaped were observed for annealed ones. Zirconia nanoparticles were formed in spherical shapes with diameters about 0.15–0.21 μm. Moreover, the cell viability was examined in vitro for osteoblasts cell lines and the inhibition zone was also measured against both Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).