Besides
the excellent osteoconductivity and biocompatibility of
45S5 bioglass (BG), poor mechanical and electrical properties as well
as susceptibility toward bacterial adhesion limit its widespread clinical
applications. In this context, the present study investigates the
effect of addition of piezoelectric sodium potassium niobate
(Na0.5K0.5NbO3; NKN) on mechanical,
dielectric, and antibacterial response of BG. BG–xNKN (x = 0, 10, 20, and 30 vol%) composites were
synthesized at 800 °C for 30 min. The phase analyses using spectral
techniques revealed the formation of the composite without any reaction
between BG and piezoelectric ceramic NKN. The dielectric and
electrical measurements were performed over a wide range of temperature
(30–500 °C) and frequency (1 Hz–1 MHz) which suggests
that space charge and dipolar polarizations are the dominant polarization
mechanisms. The complex impedance analyses suggest that the average
activation energies for grain and grain boundary resistances for BG–xNKN (x = 10, 20, and 30 vol%) composites
are 0.59, 0.87, 0.94 and 0.76, 0.93, 1.06 eV, respectively. The issue
of bacterial infection has been addressed by electrical polarization
of the developed composite samples, at 20 kV for 30 min. Statistical
analyses reveal that the viability of Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) bacterial cells has
been reduced significantly on positively and negatively charged BG–NKN
composite samples, respectively. The qualitative analyses using the
Kirby–Bauer test supports the above findings. Nitro blue tetrazolium
and lipid peroxide assays were performed to understand the mechanism
of such antibacterial response, which suggested that the combined
effect of NKN addition and polarization significantly enhances the
superoxide production, which kills the bacterial cells. Overall, incorporation
of NKN in BG enhances the mechanical, electrical, and dielectric properties
as well as improves the antibacterial response of polarized BG–xNKN composites.