Structural, crystallization and cytocompatibility evaluation of the 45S5 bioglass-derived glass-ceramic containing niobium

This work studied the crystallization process of two bioglass series derived from 45S5 (R) containing niobium (BGNb5 and BGNb10). In vitro biological analyzes of cell viability corroborate with the qualitative interpretation of the NC values, of a open and fragmented structure, which is interesting from a biological point of view and with the FTIR and Raman results which demonstrated that the breakdown of Si-O-Si bonds and the formation of Si-O-NBO bonds play an important role in the interface of the biological responses of the bioactive materials. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Differential scanning calorimetry analysis (DSC) also generated insight into the structure of the glasses. To the best of our knowledge, this seems to be the first time that structural changes in bioactive glasses derived from 45S5 resulting from the addition of niobium are studied during its crystallization process.