Rice husk bones
Agricultural waste can be converted into bioceramics
Bioceramics for the production of implants and the elimination of bone defects was developed by an international group of materials scientists at the NUST MISIS Center for Composite Materials. Biomaterials obtained from agricultural waste – rice husks – have shown excellent biomineralization and compatibility with mammalian blood cells.
The results of the work are published in the journal Materials Science and Engineering C: Materials for Biological Applications (Choudhary et al., Biomineralization, dissolution and cellular studies of silicate bioceramics prepared from eggshell and rice husk).
The easy availability and cheapness of agricultural waste motivates the search for methods of their transformation into a valuable product. Rice husks, for example, are rich in silicon dioxide. The high calcium content in the eggshell makes it a competitive raw material for the production of biomaterials. The strategy of recycling waste into a product to create biomedical applications is economically justified and environmentally friendly.
Materials scientists at the NUST MISIS Center for Composite Materials used raw eggshells and rice husks to produce three different types of silicate bioceramics – diopside, wollastonite and forsterite. It is shown that the biological activity of the material depends on the chemical composition of the feedstock and its ability to be in a physiological environment. The success of operations in implantology depends on the bioactivity of the material.
"Our research is aimed at solving the problem of processing bio–waste into materials and products, including for use in medicine, which is relevant all over the world," explained the co-author of the development, a student of the iPhD Biomaterial Science program at NUST MISIS Inna Bulygina.
The researchers stressed that it is very difficult to introduce the chemical elements necessary to accelerate bone regeneration into synthetic biomaterials. The way out is to use raw materials that have naturally preserved sodium, magnesium, potassium, silicon and others ions. Such an approach can help in increasing the rate of osteogenesis – the formation of bone tissue to replace that lost during injuries and diseases.
"Diopside (CaMgSi 2 O 6) showed the best results – it showed the highest hemocompatibility at all concentrations (62.5, 125, 250 mcg/ml) even after 24 hours of incubation. Incubation of multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MMSCs) of mice with diopside in general does not lead to an increase in the level of apoptosis in cell culture compared to the control," says one of the authors, a postdoc of NUST MISIS Rajan Choudhary.
"We have proposed a simple method for extracting pure silicon dioxide from rice husks. In the course of testing, we have shown that the material obtained in this way does not impair the viability of the cells in contact with it," added Fyodor Senatov, Head of the iPhD Biomaterial Science at NUST MISIS, PhD.
Currently, the possibility of reproducing the architecture of native tissues is being studied by manufacturing scaffolds using additive manufacturing (scaffolds are structures that serve as a substrate and "guides" for tissue regeneration).
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