Titanium Phosphate Glass Microspheres as Microcarriers for In Vitro Bone Cell Tissue Engineering - Biointerfaces: Where Material Meets Biology - page 109

temperature jet depends on the required particle size; stronger jets gener-
ated at higher temperatures can spheroidise particles with a larger grain
size. The particles to be spheroidised can be fed to the flame either manually
or using an automated feed assembly. The microspheres can be collected
over air or water in standard glass containers. Other techniques for pro-
ducing glass microspheres are based on processing techniques that com-
plement the sol-gel method, as described in the review by Park et al. 52
Silicate glasses are far more amenable to such processing than phosphate
glasses, with tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) being the silica precursor of
choice, and various microsphere morphologies such as solid or hollow
microspheres with or without surface porosity can be obtained, 53-58 as op-
posed to the flame spheroidisation process which is mostly used to produce
non-porous solid microspheres.

d n 3 r 4 n g | 3

5.2.1 Materials
All chemicals used for glass making have purities of 499% and can be
sourced from VWR (Poole, UK).

Calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ; GPR Rectapur, catalog no. 22296)
Phosphorus pentoxide (P 2 O 5 ; BDH Prolabo, catalog no. 21411)
Sodium dihydrogen orthophosphate (NaH 2 PO 4 ; GPR Rectapur, catalog
no. 28013)
Titanium( IV ) oxide (TiO 2 ; BDH Prolabo, catalog no. 20732)

.

5.2.2 Equipment
Alcohol wipes (Azowipe bactericidal wipes may be used)
Aluminium trough
Connecting wires
DC motor (15 800 rpm, 4.5-15 V, 35.8 mm diameter; RS Components,
Corby, UK)
Furnace capable of temperatures up to 1500 1C (RHF 1500; Carbolite, UK)
Laboratory paddle blender (Stomacher s 400 Circulator; Seward, UK)
MAP-PLUS gas cylinder (453 g; Today's Tools, UK)
Metal tongs
Metal screws
Micro spatula
Microscope slides
Milling machine (MM301; Retsch, Germany)
Mortar and pestle
Optical microscope
Paddle blender bags (Stomacher s 400 Classic BA6141)
Parafilm
Platinum crucible (Pt/10% Rh type 71040; Johnson Matthey, UK)
Plastic container (capacity, 1000 mL)