Chemical vapor deposition of carbon nanotubes on a biosilica substrate and investigation of carbon nanotube composites in tissue engineering

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are one of the most important materials in nanotechnology. Its superior mechanic and surface properties are making the use of carbon nanotubes in tissue engineering possible. In addition to be used in bone tissue engineerin and as a strengthening material in scaffold production, it has been seen that carbon nanotubes have affect on cell proliferation and differentiation. In scope of this master thesis, production of carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition method and using of carbon naotubes in tissue engineering have been researched. Experimentally, carbon nanotubes are produced by chemical vapor deposition in 700 C with Fe(NO3)3.9H2O catalyst and methane gas. Two types of catalyst were produced by bio-silica. Bio-silica was extracted from rice hysh ash. Other catalyst was produced by using TEOS as silicate starter. Characterization of carbon nanotubes were made by SEM and TEM devices. Composite films were produced with Poly lactic asid (PLA), CNT and graphene as a scaffold and tensile tests were made with the CNT (composite films), which are produced with the method that sodium silicate solution was used as a catalyst. Mechanical resistance of PLA were increased 4 times with CNTs. It has been seen that graphene-PLA films and CNT-PLA films had almost same strength. For scaffold experiment, bone cancer cells (MG63s) were chosen. Affects of cell proliferation were researched by cell culturing. Despite the cells in PLA scaffolds were only proliferated, the cells in carbon nanotube scaffolds were both proliferated and differentiated. Compared to graphen, more bone cells can be produced with the CNTs scaffolds.