Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Inorganic-Organic Sol-Gel
Hybrids
Yuki Shirosaki,
1
Akiyoshi Osaka,
1
Kanji Tsuru,
2
and Satoshi
Hayakawa
1
1
Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Okayama University,
Okayama, Japan
2
Department of Biomaterials, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
10.1 INTRODUCTION
So far, the topic has concentrated on glasses and glass-ceramics, which
are very hard materials. For many applications, these materials work
very well; but for other applications, softer, more flexible materials,
or those with specific functional groups, are needed. For example, in
bone repair applications, it may be important to gain flexibility and
toughness without losing the bioactivity of the glass or glass-ceramic.
Inorganic-organic hybrids are materials synthesized by combining inor-
ganic and organic components with interactions at the molecular scale
such that they are indistinguishable at the submicrometer level or above
(e.g. Figure 10.1). A hybrid is very different from a composite because
