Doped Potassium Jarosite: Synthesis, Characterization and Evaluation as Biomaterial for Its Application in Bone Tissue Engineering

Abstract

For decades, jarosites have been precipitated by controlling Fe in hydrometallurgical circuits. In addition, their synthesis, characterization, precious metals incorporation, decomposition and leaching have led to important results in this field. Nowadays, new topics related to the synthesis of these compounds have directed studies for applications such as lithium-ion batteries (as cathodes or/and anodes). Additionally, in this work, the evaluation of these kinds of compounds as biomaterials to be used in bone tissue engineering is shown, which is a novel application of these jarosite type-compounds. The method used for the synthesis of these compounds has been improved, decreasing the temperature (from 95 to 70 °C) and synthesis time (from 24 to only 3 h), which allows the doping of the potassium jarosite with calcium, strontium and magnesium (JKCa, JKCa2 and JKAll). The powders obtained this way were characterized confirming the incorporation of these elements into the structure, and the biological assays allowing the cell proliferation at 10 days conclude that these compounds are viable as a biomaterial, due to their non-toxic property. On the other hand, these jarosites show osteoinduction when added to the swine dental pulp stem cells and can be used for orthodontic purpouses.

Synthesis, Characterization and Decomposition of Potassium Jarosite for Adsorptive As(V) Removal in Contaminated Water: Preliminary Study

“…Synthesis of potassium jarosite using a modified method resulted in spherical and semispherical particles, as were obtained by other authors [ 35 , 41 , 47 ]. However, in this case, the particle sizes obtained were smaller (1 to 2 μm) than those obtained in previous works [ 39 , 40 ], which make these powders potentially attractive for multiple usages, due to their major superficial contact area. For this study, these kinds of particles were adequate for the decomposition process and the immediate adsorption of arsenic (V) into the decomposed jarosite, which was carried out at ambient temperature, also promoting its recrystallization at the same temperature.…”

“…On the other hand, Raman spectroscopy analysis is a useful tool for finding the stretching and bending vibrations associated with the interactions of atoms in minerals and compounds and has been used as a complementary technique to disclose elements and compounds involved in synthetic and natural jarosites [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ].…”

“…For this work, the potassium jarosite synthesis was executed using the modified method utilized in previous works [ 39 , 40 ]. The synthesis method followed the chemical dissolution–precipitation with a slight modification of parameters such as temperature, concentration, pH, and reaction time.…”

“…Finally, this work relates to the incorporation of As by cationic exchange in the structure of a decomposed potassium jarosite (FeOH) previously synthesized using the method described in other works [ 39 , 40 ]. The novelty of the present study relates to the viability of the incorporation of about 4.19% As(V) in a decomposed jarosite at room temperature in alkaline media (pH 10), before decreasing the pH to 1.1 immediately, at which point the crystalline structure of potassium jarosite was again observed.…”