Mechanical and Electrical properties of Chitosan Doped with Zirconium Oxide for Biomaedical Engineering

Abstract

In this work, chitosan (CTS) powder has been doped with zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) at different wt.% in order to improve the mechanical strength of the composites for biomedical applications. The composites have been prepared by ball milling method and the sintering has been done at three temperatures 100˚C, 150˚C and 180˚C for 3 hours in air. The crystalline structure of the composites was confirmed by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and the crystallite size increases with increasing the percentage of ZrO₂ . The improvement of mechanical strength of the composites with the addition of ZrO₂ in CTS polymer matrix has been investigated using micro-Vickers hardness tester and observed that the hardness of the prepared composite increased to 536 MPa when 90 wt.% chitosan doped with 10 wt.% ZrO 2 at 180⁰C of sintering temperature, demonstrating that the composites can be a potential candidate in bone tissue engineering.

• Supervision