Functional highly ordered mesoporous phosphate glasses prepared by sol-gel

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Aims:- To produce porous phosphate glass materials via the sol-gel route for the use in biomedical applications. The porosity will allow for drug loading and release.- To explore other soft-chemistry routes to produce phosphate glasses.- To explore different glass compositions by incorporating various metal ions into the glasses such as silver, copper and zinc. Many metal ions have been shown to play important roles in the wound healing and bone-production mechanisms and other ions such as silver have been presented as possessing antibacterial properties.- To study the physical and chemical properties of glasses produced such as biocompatibility, antibacterial properties, dissolution, strength and chemical stability.Methodology:- Produce glasses with pores on the nanoscale with the use of surfactants as templating agents. The surfactants will be removed after production leaving pores.- Porous scaffolds will be produced with the use of electrospinning. This will allow for a larger surface area and higher drug-loading capacities.