Improving the antibacterial
activity to avoid infections and keeping
the biocompatibility at a safe level of HAp-based materials is highly
important for biomedical applications. In this work, we investigate
the antibacterial activity of 2.5Ag/2.5Mg co-doped HAp and 2.5Ag/2.5Zn
co-doped HAp toward
Escherichia coli
bacteria. Moreover, their biocompatibility for osteoblastic cells
(MC3T3-E1 cells) was also evaluated. The physical properties were
characterized with necessary characterization tools such as X-ray
diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy,
and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller. Both 2.5Ag/2.5Mg and 2.5Ag/2.5Zn
co-doped HAp consist of hydroxyapatite (HAp) and beta calcium triphosphate
(β-TCP) phases. The antibacterial test reveals that 2.5Ag/2.5Mg
co-doped HAp or 2.5Ag/2.5Zn co-doped HAp has an outstanding antibacterial
activity with a killing rate of 99 ± 1%. More importantly, the
cell viability for osteoblast cells with 2.5Ag/2.5Mg and 2.5Ag/2.5Zn
co-doped HAp promotes the proliferation much more effectively than
2.5Ag-doped HAp or 5Ag-doped HAp.