Degradable phosphate-based glasses that contain strontium, zinc and calcium were investigated to examine their function as an osteoconductive material. Glass beads of the general formula of (P2O5)-(Na2O)-(TiO2)-(CaO)-(SrO) or (ZnO) were prepared by a melt quench technique followed by milling and spheroidisation.
After performing x-ray diffraction on all the samples for glass structure evaluation, glass bead size distribution was initially measured by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Then, some of these samples were immersed in deionised water to evaluate both the surface changes and measure the ion release rate, whereas other samples of glass beads were incubated in culture media to determine pH changes.
