Chitosan surface coating modified submicron ordered porous zirconia

Abstract Ordered porous ZrO 2 has good biocompatibility and chemical stability, however, it exhibits low bioactivity and insufficient drug loading. In this study, submicron ordered porous ZrO 2 skeleton was constructed using polystyrene colloidal crystal with an average size of 820 ± 10 nm as the template. It was then modified by chitosan (CS) surface coating to change its surface functional groups, thereby improving its adsorption capacity and obtaining surface bioactivity to expand its potential application in the field of drug slow release. The factors affecting ordered porous morphology of the composite and their influencing rules were studied in detail. The results indicated that morphology of the composite was greatly affected by the concentration of CS, coating time, molecular weight of CS, and degree of deacetylation (DD). When the CS concentration was 1 wt%, the coating time was 1 h, the CS molecular weight was 200 kDa, and the DD was 90 %, the composite had regular ordered porous morphology and uniform thickness, which is expected to become a high performance drug sustained-release carrier material.