Influence of network modifiers in an acetate based sol-gel bioactive glass system

Bioactive glasses are well known for their application in the field of bone tissue engineering and restorative dentistry. One of the issues of sol-gel bioglass is the final inhomogeneity in the glass composition as there is a struggle to incorporate the network modifiers (especially calcium) into the glass network. We used acetate precursors instead of nitrates to incorporate the network modifiers (CaO/Na2O) and mainly studied their influence on the glass structure and texture. In our system a part of the calcium enters into the network at lower temperatures than the existing nitrate systems. Furthermore, the porosity is driven with increasing CaO in the composition. These highly porous and non-toxic acetate systems are promising to be used in medical applications such as bioactive fillers in dental adhesives.261