Alginate/Gelatin/Hydroxyapatite Porous Electrically Conductive Osteoplastic Biomaterial

The process of the bone healing is a complicated and staged mechanism. The search for materials to optimize the bone healing is an important medical and social problem nowadays. Our aim was to create an osteoplastic material, which is an alginate-gelatin matrix cross-linked with divalent Ca, Zn, Cuions with immobilized particles $(\leq 163\mu \mathrm{m})$ of nanostructured hydroxyapatite (HA) synthesized in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), a pore-forming agent, and with the addition of the organic conductive reagent polyaniline (PANI). It has been shown that the created biomaterials have a porous structure, and the degree of porosity depends on the component composition and shape of the biomaterial. Beads that contain $\text{Ca}^{2+}, \text{Zn}^{2+}$ and $\text{Cu}^{2+}$ ions have porosity of about 17, 25 and 39%, and plates have porosity of about 30, 37 and 42%, respectively. The degree of swelling after 24 hours for HA/Ca/PANI, HA/Zn/PANI, HA/Cu/PANI samples was 424.8, 443.6, 432.4%, respectively, which satisfies their use as an osteoplastic material. The addition of PANI slightly reduces the porosity of samples that contain $\text{Zn}^{2+}$ and $\text{Cu}^{2+}$, but at the same time increases their electrical conductivity by a factor of two compared to PANI-free samples. The electrical conductivity of the HA/Ca/PANI, HA/Zn/PANI, and HA/Cu/PANI samples is 1.319±0.032, 1.399±0.096, and 0.652±0.005 S/m, respectively. The synthesized osteoplastic material is promising for use in biomedical practice after clinical testing.