Novel graphene oxide-containing antibacterial mesoporous bioactive glass

Bioactive glasses (BGs) have been applied in many areas, such as drug carriers, tooth fillings, and bone implants, due to their excellent bioactivity. For bone implants, adding BGs with antibacterial agents overcomes the main problem of their lack of intrinsic antibacterial properties. In this study, we introduce the novel antibacterial agent of graphene oxide (GO) to replace the conventional antibacterial agents of antibiotics and Ag. Three types of GOs, namely, reduced GO (rGO), GO, and nitrate acid treated-GO (N-GO), were used to prepare GO-containing BGs. The pure BG and the three GO-containing BGs all exhibited bioactivity. In addition, the antibacterial results showed that N-GO-containing BG had the highest antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, 82.7%, followed by 3.8% for GO-containing BG, 1.6% for pure BG, and 1.2% for rGO-containing BG. Finally, the corresponding mechanisms of bioactivity and antibacterial activity are also discussed.