A Study on Reagent Concentration and Antibacterial Activity of Bioactive Glass-ZrO2 and ZnO-Bioactive Glass Particles

One approach to the simultaneous use of bioactive glass particles and other functional ceramics is to composite them and make a core-shell structure. Here, the bioactive glass nanoparticles were electrophoretically deposited on Ti6Al4V substrate and a coating full of small cracks was obtained due to the brittle nature of the particles. To overcome the brittle nature of these nanoparticles, and give them extra antibacterial properties, two types of particles were synthesized, where the bioactive glass was used as a core in one and as a shell in another. Therefore, the effect of zirconium propoxide precursor concentration and ammonium hydroxide as catalyst on sono-chemical synthesis optimization process of the bioactive glass-ZrO2 and bioactive glass-ZnO nanoparticles were thoroughly studied. The antibacterial activities of core and core-shell nanoparticles were studied against the Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli bacteria, and bioactive glass and bioactive glass-ZrO2 nanoparticles showed no antibacterial activity perhaps due to the low Ca ion concentration in their composition and low ZrO2 (shell) thickness, respectively. However, ZnO and bioactive glass-ZnO nanoparticles both showed antibacterial activity against S. aureus bacteria and the diameter of the inhibition zone against S. aureus bacteria in the ZnO specimen was higher than the bioactive glass-ZnO one.