Nanocomposites based on hydroxyapatite/lithium oxide and graphene oxide nanosheets for medical applications

Abstract

Metal-based bioceramics are developed to imitate the natural bones to be used as bone substitutes. Different nanocomposites are synthesized using hydroxyapatite (HAP), Li2O and GO to fabricate HAP, Li2O, HAP/Li2O, HAP/GO and HAP/Li2O/GO. XRD shows the change in crystal structure upon adding the three nanocomposites to each other. Besides, FTIR and XPS explain the functional groups of the compositions and analyze their surface composition. The TEM explains the morphological changes for particles dimensions of HAP/Li2O/GO showing a length of 20 nm for HAP and a size of 6 nm for Li2O sphere. In addition, SEM graphs explained the enhancement of HAP/Li2O/GO porosity showing a particle size of 0.3–0.4 µm and length of 0.8 µm. Further, roughness parameters are improved upon adding HAP and Li2O to GO, showing a roughness average value of 57.80 nm. Moreover, the cell viability of HAP/Li2O/GO is examined and shows a maximum value of 97.4 ± 1.2%. In addition, the antibacterial activity exhibited by HAP/Li2O/GO against (Escherichia coli = E. coli) and (Staphylococcus aureus = S. aureus) showed an inhibition zone of 13.4 ± 1.2 mm 12.3 ± 1.3 mm. Adding HAP presents an improvement in surface roughness as well as cell viability and antibacterial activity. Besides, the microhardness has been improved from 2.6 ± 0.1 GPa to 3.1 ± 0.2 for pure HAP and HAP/Li2O/GO, respectively. Therefore, combining HAP, GO and Li2O results in a nanocomposite of enhanced biocompatibility and can be suggested for bone biomedical applications.