A biomaterial for scaffold applications: Thermal properties analysis of a PSZ-TiO2/HDPE system

Abstract

High-density polyethylene (HDPE) matrices reinforced with titanium dioxide (TiO2) biocomposites are seen as promising biomaterials due to their superior properties. In this work, an attempt was made to study the effects of six biocomposites hybrid Titanium dioxide (TiO2) and yttria-stabilized zirconia (Y-PSZ) samples reinforced with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) matrices, split into two groups, in terms of withstanding the daily activity loads imposed by human bone grafting and repairs. The fabricated composites were investigated using the hot-pressing technique at different compression pressures and compounding temperature. To achieve characterization, thermal analysis of the process using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques was undertaken. To improve and verify the results, Design Expert 11.0 software and a response surface methodology (RSM) technique were used. For both nanofabricated types, the results showed that an increase in TiO2 ceramic filler from 1% to 10 %, caused percentage crystallization to increase by 14.58%. The heat of system fusion for the second fabricated system also decreased by 11%. These results show that this addition reduced the heat of system fusion by 109% compared with previous studies. The glass transition (onset) and end (melting) temperature also increased with increases in the applied compression pressure and hot-pressing temperature when a small value, 1%, of TiO2 ceramic nanoparticle fillers in the HDPE matrix. The temperature values were increased when using higher compression pressure of between 60 and 90 MPa, and the onset temperature reached a maximum value of 127 °C. This increase in onset temperature continued when using higher values of TiO2 Nanoceramic filler and the onset temperature reached its maximum value with 10% TiO2 and 2% PSZ Nanoceramic fillers added to the fabricated nanomaterial system. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) scanned curves and the 3D atomic force microscopy (AFM) microstructure and granularity distribution images for both fabricated nanocomposite systems clearly showed that the interconnections between the filler’s ceramic nanoparticles within the polymeric matrix offer high surface roughness values due to the excellent nanofiller particle distribution within the polymeric matrix.