Multifunctional organic and inorganic hybrid bionanocomposite of chitosan/poly(vinyl alcohol)/nanobioactive glass/nanocellulose for bone tissue engineering

Abstract

The present study explored a novel organic-inorganic hybrid CPBNC bionanocomposite by developing chitosan (C)-poly(vinyl alcohol) (P)/nanobioactive glass (B)-nanocellulose (NC) with the addition of 1%, 2% and 3 wt% of nanocellulose as template material for bone tissue application. Nanobioactive glass of size 6–10 nm and nanocellulose of size 6–7 nm was confirmed by TEM analysis. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicated strong electrostatic interactions between the functional groups present in the CPBNC bionanocomposite. The mechanical analysis confirmed the formation of CPBNC bionanocomposite and showed improved tensile strength (59.7 ± 1.5 MPa) young's modulus (174.9 ± 6.1 MPa) and compressive strength (4.9 ± 0.2 MPa). Porosity percentage of 61–79% was comparable to cancellous bones with suitable swelling and decreased degradation behaviour properties that could be ideal for cell seeding. Morphological studies by FE-SEM displayed a homogeneous dispersion and smooth surface. The biomimetic mineralization process confirmed the hydroxyapatite nucleation from FE-SEM analysis. It was observed that the CPBNC bionanocomposites provided a better antibacterial effect against E. coli and S. aureus. The hemocompatibility test proved that CPBNC bionanocomposites are blood compatible and showed a hemolytic ratio of less than 2%. The above findings point to a simple method of synthesizing high-performance NC-based scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.