Sharif Digital Repository

Biodegradable magnesium implants possess excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility, which make them suitable candidates to be employed as temporary structures for the bone regeneration purposes. However, there are still important challenges which limit their extensive use in biomedical applications, where the most important ones include implant-associated infection, rapid degradation rate and the need for improved mechanical properties. Silver, which is a strong antimicrobial agent, has been extensively used for improving the mentioned challenges in biodegradable Mg alloys either as alloying element or incorporation in the protective coating. Ag addition has been reported to have... 

3D porous PLA-graphite composite scaffolds are recently introduced as promising candidates in tissue engineering practices owing to their significantly enhanced mechanical strength in comparison with pure PLA. However, they mainly suffer from low degradation rate as well as undesirable hydrophobic surface. In this regard and to address such challenges, Mg particles, as one of the lightest metallic fillers, were added to PLA-graphite scaffolds via the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The obtained results indicated that introduction of 1 wt% Mg inhibited polymeric chain mobility of PLA, and hence, increased the glass transition temperature. Also, Mg particles behaved as nucleating... 

The employment of tissue engineering scaffolds in the reconstruction of the damaged bone tissues has shown remarkable promise since they significantly facilitate the healing process. Fabrication of highly porous biocompatible scaffolds with sufficient mechanical strength is still challenging. In this regard, polymers have been widely utilized to construct three-dimensional (3D) porous scaffolds due to their excellent processability and biocompatibility. However, insufficient mechanical strength and inappropriate degradation rate of the monophasic polymer scaffolds in the bone regeneration process, as the main challenges, limit their extensive clinical application. The incorporation of... 

Biodegradable Mg-Ag alloys are promising implants for bone regeneration owing to their ability to decrease inflammation and infection after implantation by the presence of Ag. However, their bioperformance requires further enhancement. In this regard, the effects of 1 wt % Y addition and solid solution heat treatment (T4) on microstructure, biocorrosion behavior, mechanical properties and biological features of a cast Mg-2Ag alloy were studied. Corrosion tests indicated the remarkable role of T4 treatment in promoting corrosion resistance by increasing microstructure homogeneity, reduction of defects and volume fraction of secondary phases as well as eliminating the dendritic microstructure... 

Developing antibacterial biodegradable Mg alloys is of paramount importance to prevent infection and inflammation during the healing process. In this regard, the Mg-2Ag alloy is proposed as a suitable candidate with appropriate biocompatibility as well as antibacterial activity. However, its rapid degradation rate limits its clinical application. To tackle this problem, the hydrothermal coating technique was employed to synthesize a barrier coating to enhance the degradability of the Mg-2Ag alloy using distilled water as the reagent. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) micrographs and X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed that a hydroxide coating was formed on the studied... 

Developing a uniform polymer-based composite filament is a critical factor for a successful 3D printing process. In this regard, a novel technique for the fabrication of PLA-graphite filament with the potential to be applied to other PLA-based composite filaments was proposed and compared to the solvent casting method. This modified mixing technique involves partial dissolution of the PLA pellets surface by dichloromethane (DCM), which creates a sticky surface for the strong adhesion of reinforcement powders. The manufactured composite filament by this method exhibited excellent structural features, while the solvent casting method yielded a heterogeneous filament with a non-uniform diameter... 

Biodegradable magnesium (Mg) alloys exhibit great potential for use as temporary structures in tissue engineering applications. Such degradable implants require no secondary surgery for their removal. In addition, their comparable mechanical properties with the human bone, together with excellent biocompatibility, make them a suitable candidate for fracture treatments. Nevertheless, some challenges remain. Fast degradation of the Mg-based alloys in physiological environments leads to a loss of the mechanical support that is needed for complete tissue healing and also to the accumulation of hydrogen gas bubbles at the interface of the implant and tissue. Among different methods used to... 

Coating is an effective approach to address the high corrosion rate of biodegradable Mg alloys, as their main challenge toward their extensive use. In this regard, it was tried to control the degradation process of an Mg-4Zn alloy by Ca addition, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP), and hydrothermal coating. The obtained results indicated that excellent grain refinement induced by Ca incorporation and ECAP simultaneously, improved both mechanical strength and corrosion resistance of the Mg-based substrate. The achieved grain refinement resulted in a thicker, more compact and integrated coating, where the ECAP-processed Mg-4Zn-0.5Ca alloy exhibited the best coating quality with no... 

Polylactic acid (PLA) is considered as a great option to be employed as 3D porous scaffold in hard tissue engineering applications owing to its excellent biocompatibility and processability. However, relatively weak mechanical properties and inappropriate biodegradability limit its extensive usage. In order to overcome the mentioned challenges, micrometric magnesium particles were incorporated into the PLA matrix by the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The effects of various Mg contents (i.e., 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 wt%) on the structural, thermal, rheological, mechanical, wettability, degradability characteristics and cellular behavior of the 3D porous PLA-Mg composite scaffolds were... 

In this study, a general 3D distributed modeling of Trolling-Mode AFM (TR-AFM) as a nanorobot is presented to analyze the 2D manipulation process of a spherical cell. To this aim, the analysis is categorized into 3 sections. In the first section, 6 deformations of TR-AFM are taken into account, and the standard model of the system is obtained. Moreover, the system is simulated in ANSYS Workbench. The results of modal and transient analyses of the system from both analytical and software methods reveal high agreement, which confirms the accuracy of the presented analytical model. In the second section, by utilizing the 3D derived model, displacement of a spherical yeast single cell (W303)... 

The anatase phase of titania was stabilised with physically modifying particulate sol-gel process. Two major parameters, peptisation temperature and drying temperature, were identified which were responsible for retarding the anatase to rutile phase transformation, crystal growth and packing of primary particles. The critical nucleus size of transformation was controlled by natural (at 25 °C) and artificial (at 50 and 70 °C) peptisation techniques. Moreover, sintering of primary particles was controlled by cool (at 0 and 5 °C) and normal (at 25 °C) drying techniques. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis confirmed that a full conversion of titanium isopropoxide is obtained...