Bioactive materials have the capability of interacting with natural tissues by inducing interfacial reactions that can promote processes such as: attachment of implants, biocolonization, tissue regeneration or biodegradation of the material. Most of the bioactive materials are ceramics that usually are brittle, too stiff and difficult to process. The goal of this work is to develop novel biomaterials, obtained through the combination of nanometric polymer and inorganic phases, that can have tailored levels of bioactivity. In this work, inorganic-organic hybrids were produced by combining poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with either tetraethoxy silane or tetramethoxy silane, doped with calcium salts and phosphorous alkoxide. The obtained materials were characterized by swelling experiments, infrared spectroscopy and microprobe analysis. The degree of bioactivity was determined by submitting the samples to water solutions for specific periods of time. The developed procedure proved to be able to yield flexible and transparent hybrid films with composition ranging from 25 to 100% volume fraction of polymer and also containing inorganic phases with compositions within 40 to 80% molar of silica. Results also showed that the obtained hybrids can exhibited degrees of bioactivity ranging from fast biodegradation to hydrogel behavior. It was also demonstrated that the degree of bioactivity can be controlled by manipulating structural factors of the hybrids such as the crosslink density, proportion of the phases and composition of the inorganic phase, among others.
Hybrids; biomaterials; sol-gel
