Fabrication and Biological Analysis of Highly Porous PEEK Bionanocomposites Incorporated with Carbon and Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles for Biological Applications

Abstract

Bone regeneration for replacing and repairing damaged and defective bones in the human body has attracted much attention over the last decade. In this research, highly porous polyetheretherketone (PEEK)/hydroxyapatite (HA) bionanocomposite scaffolds reinforced with carbon fiber (CF) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were fabricated, and their structural, mechanical, and biological properties were studied in detail. Salt porogen (200–500 µm size) leaching methods were adapted to produce porous PEEK structures with controlled pore size and distribution, facilitating greater cellular infiltration and biological integration of PEEK composites within patient tissue. In biological tests, nanocomposites proved to be non-toxic and have very good cell viability. In addition, bone marrow cell growth was observed, and PEEK/HA biocomposites with carbon particles showed increased cell attachment over the neat PEEK/HA composites. In cell viability tests, bionanocomposites with 0.5 wt% CNTs established good attachment of cells on disks compared to neat PEEK/HA biocomposites. A similar performance was seen in culture tests of bone marrow cells (osteoblasts and osteoclasts). The 0.5 wt% CF for osteoblasts and 1 wt% CNTs for osteoclasts showed higher cell attachment. The addition of carbon-based nanomaterials into PEEK/HA has been identified as an effective approach to improve cell attachment as well as mechanical and biological properties. With confirmed cell attachment and sustained viability and proliferation of the fabricated PEEK/HA/CNTs, CF bionanocomposites were confirmed to possess excellent biocompatibility and will have potential uses in bone scaffolding and other biomedical applications.

Bioactivity of PEEK GRF30 and Ti6Al4V SLM in Simulated Body Fluid and Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution

“…Also, few articles have been published on PEEK bioactivity. Interesting observations were shared by [ 32 ], who indicated that no single apatite crystals were formed on the surface of PEEK samples for 28 days. At the same time, the EDS analysis showed a decreasing trend for the content of Ca and P, which was also shown in the studies presented in this article.…”

Hydroxyapatite Obtained via the Wet Precipitation Method and PVP/PVA Matrix as Components of Polymer-Ceramic Composites for Biomedical Applications

“…Many investigations are currently being performed to develop polymer–ceramic scaffolds containing hydroxyapatite that may fill the bone defect and form conditions adequate for bone repair. Studies on the development of bone scaffolds consisting of carbon-based nanomaterials, hydroxyapatite and polyetheretherketone (PEEK) were described by Swaminathan et al They proved that the developed bionanocomposites showed high porosity, non-toxicity and good cell viability [ 18 ]. In turn, scaffolds containing non-organic silica, chitosan and hydroxyapatite were obtained and characterized by Adamski and Siuta.…”

Bioinspired Modifications of PEEK Implants for Bone Tissue Engineering

“…Numerous techniques have been applied to develop porous structures on the PEEK surface, including sulfonation, melt extrusion, porogen templating, and PIII technique (Zhao et al, 2013 ; Lu et al, 2014 ; Evans et al, 2015 ; Torstrick et al, 2016 ; Hieda et al, 2017 ; Yabutsuka et al, 2017 ; Deng L.-J. et al, 2018 ; Wu et al, 2018 ; Yuan et al, 2018 ; Conrad and Roeder, 2020 ; Swaminathan et al, 2020 ; Wan et al, 2020 ). Cell viability evaluations revealed that the optimal sulfonation treatment time was 5 min (Ma R. et al, 2020 ).…”

“…To reinforce the interfacial bonding between HA and PEEK, graphene oxide (GO) can be employed as an interfacial phase (Peng et al, 2017 ). Furthermore, the addition of graphene nanosheets, CNTs, or CF can boost the mechanical properties of PEEK/HA scaffolds (Shuai et al, 2016 ; Uddin et al, 2019 ; Swaminathan et al, 2020 ).…”