Bioactive, luminescent and mesoporous europium-doped hydroxyapatite as a drug carrier

Bioactive, luminescent and mesoporous europium-doped hydroxyapatite (Eu:HAp) was successfully prepared through a simple one-step route using cationic surfactant as template. The obtained multifunctional hydroxyapatite was performed as a drug delivery carrier to investigate the drug storage/release properties using ibuprofen (IBU) as a model drug. The structural, morphological, textural and optical properties were well characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N2 adsorption/desorption, and photoluminescence (PL) spectra, respectively. The results reveal that the multifunctional hydroxyapatites exhibit the typical ordered characteristics of the hexagonal mesostructure, and have rod-like morphology with the particle size of 20–40 nm in width and 100–200 nm in length. The drug storage/release test indicates that the luminescent HAp shows much similar drug loading amount and cumulative release rate to those of pure HAp. Interestingly, the IBU-loaded samples still show red luminescence of Eu3+ (5D0–7F1,2) under UV irradiation, and the emission intensities of Eu3+ in the drug carrier system vary with the released amount of IBU, thus making the drug release be easily tracked and monitored by the change of the luminescence intensity.