Sheffield team develops new technique for producing biocompatible glass

The group, from the university’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering has applied the technique - known as cold sintering - to produce bioactive glasses which could be used to repair human tissues in a safe, sustainable way.

The process has been used to produce glass components with a density of 95 per cent from powders by applying pressure and heat up to 250°C in the presence of simple solvents such as water. Existing methods require temperatures of at least 1000°C.

The idea for the process development came from an understanding of the cold sintering of ceramics. In addition to densifying (forming a dense final product from powder by applying  heat and pressure) a range of specialist glasses, cold sintering is of particular interest for bioactive glasses such as Bioglass, which are used to promote bone growth or to create scaffold structures which, when placed in the body, can contribute to the rapid repair of damaged tissue.