Magnesium and zinc ions play various key roles in the human body, being involved, among others, in skeletal development and wound healing. Zinc is also known to have antimicrobial properties. While low concentrations can stimulate cells in vitro, high concentrations of magnesium or zinc introduced into bioactive glasses significantly reduce glass degradation and ion release and inhibit apatite precipitation. On the other hand, magnesium and zinc ions improve the high temperature processing of bioactive glasses, even when present at low concentrations only. Results here show that by substituting small amounts of Mg or Zn for Ca, ion release remains high enough to allow for apatite precipitation. In addition, magnesium and zinc containing bioactive glasses are shown to be very susceptible to changes in particle size and relative surface area. For a given magnesium or zinc content in the glass, ion release and apatite formation can be enhanced dramatically by reducing the particle size, reaching comparable levels as Bioglass 45S5 of the same particle size range. Taken together, these findings suggest that when introducing these ions into bioactive glasses, ideally low Mg or Zn for Ca substitution as well as small particle sizes are used. This way, bioactive glasses combining good high temperature processing with fast ion release and apatite precipitation can be obtained, providing the potential additional benefit of releasing magnesium or zinc ions in therapeutic concentrations.

镁和锌离子在人体中发挥着各种关键作用，其中包括骨骼发育和伤口愈合。锌还具有抗菌特性。虽然低浓度可以在体外刺激细胞，但将高浓度的镁或锌引入生物活性玻璃中可显着减少玻璃降解和离子释放，并抑制磷灰石沉淀。另一方面，镁和锌离子改善了生物活性玻璃的高温加工，即使仅以低浓度存在。这里的结果表明，通过用少量的 Mg 或 Zn 代替 Ca，离子释放量仍然足够高，足以允许磷灰石沉淀。此外，含镁和锌的生物活性玻璃非常容易受到颗粒尺寸和相对表面积变化的影响。对于玻璃中给定的镁或锌含量，通过减小颗粒尺寸可以显着增强离子释放和磷灰石形成，达到与相同颗粒尺寸范围的 Bioglass 45S5 相当的水平。总而言之，这些发现表明，当将这些离子引入生物活性玻璃时，理想情况下使用低 Mg 或 Zn 来替代 Ca 以及小粒径。通过这种方式，可以获得将良好的高温加工与快速离子释放和磷灰石沉淀相结合的生物活性玻璃，从而提供释放治疗浓度的镁或锌离子的潜在额外益处。