Abstract
Whisker-like hydroxyapatite (HAp) particles were prepared by controlling particle growth via hydrothermal synthesis. The surface modification for the hydrothermally synthesized HAp whiskers was accomplished by TiO2 coating. After the TiO2 modification, the zeta potential of the HAp whiskers was significantly improved from +8.6 to +21 mV at pH = 8.5. A free-standing membrane (diameter of ~4.5 cm and thickness of ~0.2 mm) was fabricated by using the TiO2-coated HAp whiskers and was used to separate the Au nanoparticles (size = 5 nm and zeta potential = −38.6 mV at pH = 8.5) at a significantly high filtration efficiency of ~100%. The achieved high filtration efficiency was considered to be the result of effectively utilizing the electrostatic interaction between the positively-charged TiO2-coated HAp whiskers and negatively-charged Au nanoparticles. The excellently biocompatible and highly effective TiO2-coated HAp membrane would be potentially applied as biological and artificial separators in biotechnology processes for the biomedicine field.
Highlights
Biocompatible membranes are used as components of medical devices, implants, drug delivery systems, diagnostic assays, and bioreactor and bio-separation processes, by coming into contact with biological fluids, organs, tissues, and cells inside the human body [1]
The application of the membrane separation is a biotechnology process used for improving protein-virus separation and protein purification via high-performance filtration [2], and the biocompatibility of the membrane is its ability to perform its intended function without eliciting any local or systemic effects undesirable to the host [3]
To reveal the mechanism for the preferable growth along the c-axis in the hydrothermally-synthesized HAp particle, in this work we considered Gibbs free energy as a driving force responsible for particle growth [28]
Summary
Biocompatible membranes are used as components of medical devices, implants, drug delivery systems, diagnostic assays, and bioreactor and bio-separation processes, by coming into contact with biological fluids, organs, tissues, and cells inside the human body [1]. Hydroxyapatite (HAp, Ca10 (PO4 ) (OH)2 ) has been very well known as a promising biomaterial for wide use as a coating of metallic implants for bone tissue regeneration and in drug-controlled release, due to its chemical similarity with the mineral component of bones and due to its biocompatible, bioactive, and thermodynamically stability in the body fluid [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Jobin et al [13] declared
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