Introduction

Ink engineering can advance 3D-printability for better therapeutics, with optimized proprieties. Herein, we describe a methodology for yielding 3D-printable nanocomposite inks (NC) using low-viscous matrices, via the interaction between the organic and inorganic phases by chemical coupling.

The enhancement of current bone cement properties is a challenging issue that has been the focus of much research. Developing bone composites with high level of cytocompatibility, mechanical and antibacterial properties is a challenging task. We overcome this challenge by designing a nanocomposite that contain two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets. To develop our novel bone cement nanocomposite, 2D nanosheets were synthesized, mixed in different ratios, and then added to the PMMA matrix. The results reveal that the incorporation of 2D nanosheets into the PMMA matrix leads to increase in the antibacterial properties of the bone cement composite against E. coli bacteria. In addition, the 2D nanosheets improve the compression strength of the bone cement nanocomposite significantly. We also show that nanosheets increased the bioactivity of the bone cements. Finally, MTT assay results indicate that PMMA as a control sample has the lowest cytocompatibility, however, our novel nanocomposites have the highest amount of cytocompatibility. Thus, the current study suggests that 2D nanosheets are potential filler components for the next generation of PMMA bone cement nanocomposites. The findings of this work reveal that the excellent performance of the proposed bone composite can result in a paradigm shift in design of state-of-the art bone cement composites.