MOSCOW, 21 Aug. The idea of a «smart» material for regenerative medicine was proposed by IKBFU scientists and their colleagues. They noted that in order to better restore damaged bones of animals and humans, it is necessary to obtain a biocompatible composite material with the highest magnetoelectric effect, and they determined the conditions for the manifestation of this effect. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Soft Matter.
Composites are «composite» materials that have new properties compared to the properties of the materials «constituting» the composite.
The development of «smart» materials that can reversibly change their properties under external influence is a rapidly developing direction in materials science. These materials include magnetoelectric composites, the characteristics of which change when a magnetic field is applied.
The application of a magnetic field to a composite material causes a change in the electric polarization — a separation of positive and negative charges occurs in the material, which were compensated by each other before the external impact. The opposite effect is also possible. It is achieved due to the proximity of the ferromagnetic and piezoelectric phases of the composite.
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"Polyvinylidene fluoride can be used as a piezoelectric phase, since piezoelectrics based on it are well biocompatible and meet the requirements for the piezoelectric phase of magnetoelectric composites designed to create "smart" scaffolds, for example, for the regeneration of animal and human bones,” said laboratory researcher at the Baltic Federal University. I.Kanta (BFU) Artem Ignatov.
A material capable of generating surface charges in response to an applied magnetic field significantly influences certain cellular processes, he says. For example, it allows you to increase the rate of deposition of osteogenic stem cells from the environment, create more favorable conditions for the formation of a specialized cell phenotype, and then tissue growth.
To «configure» the parameters of such a substrate, it is necessary to study the mechanisms occurrence of the magnetoelectric effect in the composite, Ignatov noted.
Scientists from the BFU, the Ural Federal University named after the first president of Russia B.N. Yeltsin and the Institute of Continuum Mechanics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have established dependencies, the knowledge of which will help to select the conditions for obtaining a composite with the greatest predisposition to the magnetoelectric effect. Such a material will be able to more effectively influence the regenerative processes in the body.
«We have only taken the first steps, but our results can already be used for a preliminary assessment of some methods for manufacturing multiferroic films. It is difficult to numerically evaluate the effectiveness of the new technique, but I can say that that the information obtained is already helping us in the selection of a technique for manufacturing composite films,» added Ignatov.
In the future, scientists plan to increase the complexity of the mathematical systems under consideration to get closer to real samples.
The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 21-72-30032.