Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Composites Containing
Bioactive Glass
Aldo R. Boccaccini,
1
Julian R. Jones
2
and Qi-Zhi Chen
3
1
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of
Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
2
Department of Materials, Imperial College London,London, UK
3
Department of Materials Engineering, Monash University,
Victoria, Australia
9.1 INTRODUCTION
As we have seen in Chapter 2, bioactive glasses hold great promise
in terms of stimulating bone growth, but they are brittle. They are
therefore not an ideal replacement for bone, which has outstanding
mechanical properties in tension, compression and even when under
cyclic loading. Why is this? It is because bone has a complicated
structure. The hierarchical structure of bone is a wonder of Nature.
We can take inspiration from the structure and try to mimic it, but
nobody has managed it yet. Bone is a natural composite of collagen
(polymer) and bone mineral (ceramic). A composite material consists
of two or more chemically distinct phases (e.g. metallic, ceramic or
