Mesoporous zinc silicate bio-composite: Preparation, characterization and in vitro evaluation

Abstract

Abstract Zinc silicate composites bring together the unique properties of silica and zinc giving rise to a material that possesses biocompatibility, bioactivity, antibacterial activity, ability to stimulate osteogenesis and differentiation. Recently, owing to such exceptional features, zinc silicate based biocomposites have found application as a biomaterial. In this study, we report a novel one-pot method to engineer porous nanostructured mesoporous zinc silicate material (mZS). The synthesized rod-like particles with pores of size 2–3 nm had a surface area of 292.065 m2/g and were found to be pure and amorphous in nature. The material exhibited antibacterial activity against Gram positive Staphylococcus aureus where Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of mZS was found to be around 0.15 mg/mL and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) was around 0.9 mg/mL. It was found to be biocompatible towards mouse mesenchymal stem cells (C3H10T1/2) and human osteoblastic cells (MG-63). The synthesized material was stable even after 32 days and exhibited only minor structural changes due to dissolution when biodegradability studies were done in PBS. In addition, the ability of the material to carry small molecules was assessed using a water soluble cationic dye, Methylene Blue. The adsorption capacity of mZS for methylene blue dye was found to be around 47.28 ± 0.57 μg/mg of particle. The results indicated that synthesized mZS can efficiently load small molecules and possesses properties like antibacterial activity and biocompatibility, thus, might prove to be a promising biomaterial as bone fillers, bioactive coatings and bone cements.