Five Chemical Engineering Students (Tekim) Universitas Brawijaya (UB); Chindy Wulandari, Lyla Liilia Fitria Hikma, Aulia Azzahra, Hira Listya Pinastika, and Kharisma Ghanyysyafira under the guidance of Supriyono, S.T., M.T., together they find alternative for wound healing material.
Generally, the material used to heal wounds on the skin is scaffold tissue. However, scaffold tissue is usually made of synthetic hydroxyapatite (HA) which has very low mechanical properties compared to natural HA.
Ways to improve the mechanical properties are include coating with metals, composites with polymers, and composites with ceramics.
“Our team wants to improve the lack of mechanical properties by making synthetic HA with nano-sized particles combined with magnesium oxide and polyvinyl acetate (PVA),” explained Chindy, as the team leader.
Nanohydroxyapatyte (nHA) is an ideal bioactive material which composition and crystal structure are the same as HA from animal bones and can bind directly to living tissue (in vivo).
HA-PVA composites are made in the form of a membrane which later can be used as a raw material for making scaffold tissue.
The manufacture of the scaffold tissue membrane is generally done by synthesizing HA electrochemically and then making the membrane.
One of the advantages of the electrochemical particle synthesis method is that it can control the particle size by adjusting the current and voltage used. Furthermore, a characterization test is also carried out to determine whether the scaffold tissue membrane is suitable or not.
“Hopefully this innovation can provide benefits and can be applied, especially in the health sector,” hoped Chindy on behalf of the team.
This team will later fight for the 2020 Tanoto Student Research Award (TSRA) online this October. TSRA itself is a research program that is held in collaboration with the Tanoto Foundation and Universitas Brawijaya. (cw/mic)
