A Review of Phosphate and Borate Sol–Gel Glasses for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

The sol–gel processing method revolutionizes the biomedical materials field, allowing for the customized creation of nano‐ and porous materials to help treat the toughest challenges in human health. However, this process and the subsequently produced materials have mostly been based on silica, particularly in terms of biomedical glasses. Yet, within the last two decades, there has been increased interest in silica‐free glass chemistries, such as those based on borate or phosphate. Attributable to their distinct properties which allows for linear and complete degradation, these glass compositions have shown great promise for both hard and soft tissue engineering applications, albeit with only a limited number of studies on glasses created through the sol–gel process. Therefore, this review provides an overview of the advancement of nonsilica sol–gel glasses, by focusing on borate and phosphate chemistries, for biomedical applications. A comprehensive review of these materials, including the challenges in processing as well as the current uses and future potential, is discussed.

Bioactive Glass Applications: A Literature Review of Human Clinical Trials

“…The results confirm that the glass can degrade faster in dynamic conditions than in static ones. Although borate bioactive glasses have shown both mechanical and surface characteristic properties favorable for potential application in the biomedical area, most of the literature reports only results of in vivo or pre-clinical studies [ 42 , 45 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 ]. This is due to the fact that the area of bioactive borate glass science is still young and not sufficiently developed.…”

Biomineralization inspired 3D printed bioactive glass nanocomposite scaffolds orchestrate diabetic bone regeneration by remodeling micromilieu

“…In addition, the biological performances (e.g., osteogenic, angiogenic, and immunomodulatory activities) of MBGNs can be tailored by the incorporation of biologically active ions [ 31 , 37 ]. We used GelMA as the printable ink to print hydrogel scaffolds considering the superior biocompatibility and printability.…”

In Vitro Studies Demonstrate Antitumor Activity of Vanadium Ions from a CaO-P2O5-CaF2:V2O5 Glass System in Human Cancer Cell Lines A375, A2780, and Caco-2

“…Among these, a special class of glasses is phosphate glasses (PGs). PGs have been developed and intensively studied, mainly in the biomedical field (such as for surgical implants used in tissue engineering, wound dressings composed of bioactive glass microfibers for wound healing and the promotion of angiogenesis, bioactive glass-based composite biomaterials, drug delivery through antibacterial ions (silver and copper ions), and dental implants) [ 1 , 4 , 7 , 8 , 9 ] and in technological applications (such as IC packaging, thick-film technology, glass–metal sealing, flat-panel display sealing, as a host matrix for the vitrification of radioactive waste, and as a host material for lasers) [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The properties that make PGs promising candidates in biomedical applications are closely related to their molecular structure, which is generally described using the Q n formalism, where n represents the number of bridging oxygen atoms in each tetrahedron [ 12 , 13 ].…”