Surfactant-assisted sol–gel synthesis and characterization of hierarchical nanoporous merwinite with controllable drug release

Abstract

The aim of this research is to suggest both new and efficient synthesis method for preparation of pure phase nanoporous merwinite ((Ca3Mg(SiO4)2), NM) bioceramics and assess their in vitro drug delivery potential. Surfactant-assisted sol–gel method is used to produce NM using cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) as a surfactant agent. The XRD results showed that a single-phase merwinite is obtained after calcination at 850 °C. Both the FESEM and N2 adsorption desorption results exhibited that the samples have hierarchical porous structure ranging from 25 nm to 3.5 μm. Potential application of the synthesized calcium-magnesium-silicate samples as a drug delivery agent is studied by estimating their ibuprofen release properties up to 180 h. This study revealed that NM is produced by surfactant-assisted sol–gel method at lower calcination temperature compared to other studies and the synthesized samples can be used as a promising local drug delivery system.