Fabrication of surface modified antibacterial Ti6Al4V alloy powder reinforced gelatin/chitosan composite scaffold for tissue engineering applications

Abstract

The present work attempted to modify Ti6Al4V (Ti64) alloy powder to induce biocompatibility and antimicrobial properties by incorporating Ca2+ and Ag+ ions, respectively using a simple chemical treatment followed by ion exchange method. Thus functionally modified Ti64 alloy powders characterized using FE-SEM and Raman spectroscopic techniques indicate the formation of fine porous network structure along with the evolution of different phases of titania upon heat treatment in presence of Ca2+ and Ag+ ions. The incorporation of Ca2+ ions and transformation of Ag+ ions into AgNPs and their decoration on the nano porous network structure have been confirmed by the HR-TEM and EDX results. Optimized concentration of AgNPs decorated Ti64 alloy powder not only found to induce antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive S. aureus and Gram-negative E. coli bacteria and also compatible with MG-63 cell lines. Surface functionalized Ti64 alloy powder was subsequently used as reinforcement for the fabrication of gelatin - chitosan composite scaffolds using the lyophilization technique. Thus fabricated composite scaffold was analyzed for its pore morphology and pore distribution along with its in-vitro cell toxicity towards MG-63 cell lines using MTT assay. Taken together, surface modified Ti64 alloy powder reinforced gelatin-chitosan composite scaffold with biocompatible and antimicrobial properties is expected to be suitable for tissue engineering applications.