Bioglass

BioGlass is a commercially available type of bioactive glass It is also known as 45S5 glass. It is composed of SiO₂, Na₂O, CaO and P₂O₅. Professor Larry Hench developed BioGlass at the University of Florida in the late 1960s. He was challenged by a MASH army officer to develop a material to help regenerate bone, as many Vietnam war veterans suffered badly from bone damage, such that most of them injured in this way lost their limbs.

The key composition features of BioGlass is that it contains less than 60 mol% SiO₂, high Na₂O and CaO contents, high CaO/P₂O₅ ratio, which makes BioGlass highly reactive to aqueous medium and bioactive.

High bioactivity is the main advantage of BioGlass, while its disadvantages includes mechanical weakness, low fracture resistance due to amorphous 2-dimensional glass network. The bending strength of most BioGlass is in the range of 40-60MPa, which is not enough for load-bearing application. While its Young's modulus is 30-35GPa, very close to that of cortical bone.

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