Development of ternary nanocomposites based on hydroxyapatite/silver oxide for biomedical applications: morphology, structure and antibacterial activity

Nanocomposites based on hydroxyapatite (HAP) are fabricated with/without combining graphene oxide (GO) and silver oxide (Ag2O). All compositions are structurally investigated using x-ray diffraction (XRD). In addition, the lattice parameters were estimated. Lattice constants a and c of hexagonal HAP symmetry are around 9.42 and 6.88 Å, respectively. Further, the lattice constant of Ag2O is around 4.736 Å. Moreover, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is used besides X-ray photoelectron (XPS) to investigate the composition. The morphological study was done with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). In this regard, Ag2O is exhibited as nano-spherical grains, while HAP was shown in nanorod grains. The dimensions of HAP decreased from 39 to 16 to 34 and 7 nm for length and diameter. The average roughness parameter (Ra) increased from 23.3 to 67.5 nm from HAP to TNC. The parameters of average maximum height (Rtm), maximum peak height (Rp), and maximum valley depth (Rv) reached 439.3, 261.3, and 251.8 nm respectively. Further, the Ca/P ratio is detected with a value of 1.5. Besides, cell viability of osteoblast cell lines increased from 95.9 ± 3 to 101.2 ± 5%. In addition, the antibacterial behavior increased to 21.6 ± 2.3 and 21.1 ± 1.4 mm for TNC against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively.