Cerium substituted hydroxyapatite mesoporous nanorods: Synthesis and characterization for drug delivery applications

Hydroxyapatite with desirable properties is considered to be important biomaterial offering viable replacement for damaged hard tissues of human body. Substituting hydroxyapatite with suitable ions is one of the method to govern its properties. This paper reported the cerium substituted hydroxyapatite with mesoporous rod-like morphology under microwave synthesis. The effect of cerium substitution on physio-chemical properties of synthesized nanopowders was characterized using XRD, FTIR, HRTEM, EDX, BET analysis. Results reported successful substitution of cerium into HAP crystal structure as evident by XRD and FTIR. HRTEM images reports nanorods morphology with average length and diameter of 60 ± 18 nm and 18 ± 4 nm respectively for Ce-HAP particles. Mesoporous structure was confirmed by BET analysis with pore volume 0.152 cm3/mg and 7–8 nm average pore diameter. Further exploring the drug delivery potential, cerium substituted nanopowders exhibited 43% more drug loading ability as compared to Pure-HAP powder, whereas the drug discharge behaviour exhibited preliminary fast release followed by persistent release of ibuprofen drug. This, established the ability of cerium substituted hydroxyapatite nanopowders with custom properties for hard tissue engineering and drug delivery agents for treatment of infection and long term healing.