Structure, thermal properties, dissolution behaviour and biomedical applications of phosphate glasses and fibres: a review

For the last few decades, there has been a growing interest in using glasses for biomedical applications. Bioactive glasses are a group of surface reactive glasses which can initiate a range of biological responses by releasing ions into the local environment. Silicate, borate and phosphate glasses are known to show good bioactive characteristics and could be potentially used as favourable templates for bone-tissue formation. Phosphate glasses are unique group of materials that offer great potential for hard and soft tissue engineering over other types of bioactive glasses due to their fully resorbable characteristics, with some formulations possessing chemical composition similar to the mineral phase of natural bone. Moreover, these phosphate glasses can be prepared as fibres which could be used for soft tissue engineering and as fibrous reinforcement for resorbable polymers such as poly-(lactic acid) for fracture fixation applications. This review details some of the properties of phosphate glasses, such as thermal, viscosity/temperature, dissolution and biocompatibility of and how different factors can effectively alter these properties. The effect of the addition of different modifier oxides on the structure in terms of chain length is included. This review also reports on the manufacturing process, mechanical properties and biomedical application of phosphate glass fibres. A brief comparison between three different types of bioactive glasses has also been presented in this review. The main aim of this review is to present the factors affecting the properties of phosphate glasses and glass fibres and how these may be exploited in the design of a biomaterial.