An investigation into different phosphate glass processing routes and the role of phosphate glass in dental collagen-based scaffolds ; Une étude des différentes voies de traitement du verre de phosphaté et du rôle du verre de phosphate dans les échafaudages à base de collagène dentaire

This thesis concerns the development of a new series of Sr-doped phosphate-based glasses for biomedical applications. Such glasses in powder form are envisaged to have applications in novel composite restorations where the following is achievable: dentin cell-mediated bioremineralization, dental pulp regeneration and as carrier for therapeutics or antibacterial ions.The initial aim was to produce soluble porous phosphate glasses using the sol-gel method (phosphate-alkoxide based sol-gel process). Knowing the effect that the variation of Ca content has on the dissolution properties of the glass, a series of glasses where Ca was progressively increased at the expense of Na was produced. The structure of the prepared samples was probed by XRD, XRF and FTIR to confirm the successful synthesis of the target phosphate-based glass compositions. After that a promising methodology was established, attempts were made to replace Ca with Sr. Different Sr sources were used without success due to the difficulty to fully dissolve those precursors in the sol-gel mixture. Subsequently, the issue of the toxicity of some precursors and solvents used in the sol-gel procedure was recognised. To overcome this obstacle, efforts were made to replace the toxic precursor chemicals with safer ones. Nevertheless, due to the low solubility of some new precursors and the low reactivity of others, the sol-gel process did not proceed in a predictable and reproducible fashion. At this stage, the sol-gel route was put aside, and two alternative soft and water-based chemical approaches were experimented: the precipitation method and the coacervation process. The first one was found to be unsuitable for our needs for two main reasons: 1) the presence of Na in the composition generated a crystalline material (instead of a glassy amorphous one); 2) the Ca/P ratio of our composition fell in the range of crystalline phase by using this method. In addition, the yield was really low. The second method (coacervation process) was a complete success. The ...