Bioactive, luminescent and mesoporous europium-doped hydroxyapatite as a drug carrier

Bioactive, luminescent and mesoporous europium-doped hydroxyapatite (Eu:HAp) was successfully prepared through a simple one-step route using cationic surfactant as template. The obtained multifunctional hydroxyapatite was performed as a drug delivery carrier to investigate the drug storage/release properties using ibuprofen (IBU) as a model drug. The structural, morphological, textural and optical properties were well characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N-2 adsorption/desorption, and photoluminescence (PL) spectra, respectively. The results reveal that the multifunctional hydroxyapatites exhibit the typical ordered characteristics of the hexagonal mesostructure, and have rod-like morphology with the particle size of 20-40 nm in width and 100-200 nm in length. The drug storage/release test indicates that the luminescent HAp shows much similar drug loading amount and cumulative release rate to those of pure HAp. Interestingly, the IBU-loaded samples still show red luminescence of Eu3+(D-5(0)-F-7(1,2)) under UV irradiation, and the emission intensities of Eu3+ in the drug carrier system vary with the released amount of IBU, thus making the drug release be easily tracked and monitored by the change of the luminescence intensity. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.