Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the pure CNFs remained in their initial morphology after acid treatment. This is similar to the
results reported by R.H. Hurt, who found no degradation occurring to normal carbon materials
under the acid treatment
[110]
. The
β
-TCP-decorated CNF have broken into short segments due to
the dissolution of
-TCP nanoparticles. The shortened CNFs and the release of calcium cations and
phosphate anions as nutrient mineral salts may be advantageous to improve the physiochemical
compatibility of CNF-based scaffold. As compared to conventional large aspect ratio CNFs, these
short CNFs maybe more easily eliminated from systemic blood circulation through the renal excre-
tion routes, which can be potentially used as the degradable scaffold
[72,73]
.
β
18.8
Conclusions
This chapter discussed some of the researches concerning the modification of CNTs and CNFs to
improve their biocompatibility and bioactivity properties and highlighted their applications in bone
regeneration and implant dentistry. These nanomaterials are becoming increasingly attractive as
they can be modified to be integrated into human body for promoting tissue regeneration. Despite
the tremendous potential CNTs and CNFs can bring, the presence of unreacted catalysts in CNTs/
CNFs is a key factor promoting their toxicity, so care should be taken when synthesizing CNTs/
CNTs. Inorganic nanoparticles embedded CNFs, which was developed in our lab, provided a prom-
ising method to produce CNFs with bioactivity and biocompatibility, while without using any cata-
lyst. However, the toxicity of these materials is one of the issues that remain further investigation,
to see if they can really be safe to be used for applications discussed in this chapter.
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