The impact of copper oxide nanoparticles on the structure and applicability of bioactive glasses

In order to identify novel appropriate compositions for targeted tissue engineering applications, bioactive glasses with copper oxide content were synthesized by sol-gel method and further investigated. Copper oxide nanoparticles (Cu2ONP) were chosen with the aim of understanding the impact of different copper species on the biocompatibility and antibacterial activity. The structural analyses revealed that the copper in the glass samples is in the copper hydroxy phosphate form, i.e., Cu2(PO4)(OH). The in vitro bioactivity assessment revealed that in the simulated body fluid were leached ionic species as CuH2PO4+, which interact with biological materials. In vitro cells viability assays performed with Human keratinocytes cells show good proliferation rate for the sample with 0.2 mol% CuO. The good antibacterial effect was obtained against Pseudomonas aeruginosa using glasses with 0.2–0.5 mol% CuO, and against Staphylococcus aureus, where only the sample with 0.5 mol% CuO exhibited a slight effect.