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Recently, 3-D porous architecture of the composites play a key role in cell proliferation, bone regeneration, and anticancer activities. The osteoinductive and osteoconductive properties of β-TCP allow for the complete repair of numerous bone defects. Herein, β-TCP was synthesized by wet chemical precipitation route, and their 3-D porous composites with H3BO3 and Cu nanoparticles were prepared by the solid-state reaction method with improved mechanical and biological performances. Several characterization techniques have been used to investigate the various characteristics of fabricated porous composites. SEM and TEM studies revealed the porous morphology and hexagonal sheets of the β-TCP for the composite THC8 (82TCP-10H3BO3-8Cu). Moreover, the mechanical study showed excellent compressive strength (188 MPa), a high Young's modulus (2.84 GPa), and elevated fracture toughness (9.11 MPa.m1/2). An in vitro study by MTT assay on osteoblast (MG-63) cells demonstrated no or minimal cytotoxicity at the higher concentration, 100 µg/ml after 24 h and it was found a more pronounced result at 20 µg/ml on increasing the concentration of Cu nanoparticles after incubating 72 h. The THC12 composite showed the highest antibacterial potency exclusively against B. subtilis. S. pyogene, S. typhi and E. coli. at 10 mg/ml, indicating its potential effectiveness in inhibiting all of these pathogens. Genotoxicity and cytotoxicity tests were also performed on rearing Drosophila melanogaster, and these findings did not detect any trypan blue-positive staining, which further recommended that the existence of composites did not harm the larval gut. Therefore, the fabricated porous composites THC8 and THC12 are suitable for bone regrowth without harming the surrounding cells and protect against bacterial infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition metals (TMs) iron, cobalt, copper, and nickel have been chosen as the chemical modifiers with a binary alloy Se80Te20 as the parent sample to make novel Se78Te20TM2 (TM = Fe, Co, Ni, Cu) alloys. The frequency dependence of dielectric loss and a.c. conductivity ( σ ac ) have been studied and the possible mechanism has been checked. The dielectric constant (ε') shows significant variation among the samples, with the parent Se80Te20 alloy exhibiting the highest value, followed closely by Se78Te20Cu2. Conversely, Se78Te20Fe2 and Se78Te20Ni2 alloys exhibit much lower values. The dielectric loss also varies widely, with Se80Te20, while Se78Te20Fe2 and Se78Te20Ni2 alloys present extremely low values of loss. The barrier height ranges between 0.31 eV (Fe-doped sample) and 1.2 eV (Ni-doped sample), indicating that doping influences the band gap significantly. The hooping distance shows considerable differences, with Fe-doped alloys exhibiting the highest value at 39.5 Å, while Co-doped samples show the lowest at 11.4 Å. Applicability of the Meyer-Neldel rule is observed in the a.c. conduction for all samples. The reducing nature of the power-law exponent “s” with increasing temperature indicates the correlated barrier hopping model for Se80Te20 and Se78Te20TM2 (TM = Co, Ni, Cu) alloys, as they exhibit a certain nature of variation. However, because “s” increases with temperature, the non-overlapping small polaron tunneling model is a particularly appropriate mechanism for a.c. conduction of ternary Se78Te20Fe2 alloy. Furthermore, we estimated the density of localized states for the synthesized material at various temperatures. The maximum reduction in the density of states is observed for the iron-containing parent sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]