About me
Anuraag Gaddam obtained his PhD in materials engineering from University of Aveiro, Portugal in 2016. Prior to that he obtained an integrated master’s degree (B-Tech and M-Tech) from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), India in 2012. His research career started in 2011 with the master’s project involving the development of lithium disilicate based glass-ceramics for dental Applications. Immediately after graduation, he pursued his PhD with the title “Structure and crystallization of multi-component lithium silicate-based glasses”. This involved correlating glass structure with its properties and its crystallization behaviour in multicomponent lithium silicate-based glasses. His work includes preparing glasses with different compositions and probing its structure with different techniques like, NMR, Raman, FTIR, UV-Vis spectroscopies. He is also interested in developing mathematical models to describe various aspects involving glass structure and its properties based on statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. He also worked on other areas distant from glass science such as rheological study of ceramic suspensions and inks. Furthermore, he develops computational models (using C++). Currently, he is studying boron containing bioactive glasses using NMR spectroscopy to elucidate structure-property correlations.
Project description
Bioactive glasses were discovered in 1969 by Larry Hench, with the first bioactive glass named 45S5.These materials have become promising candidates for biomedical applications due to their ability to bond to the human tissue. Currently, several bioactive glass compositions exist that are of both scientific and technological interest. The current project aims to investigate the structural role of boron and fluorine in several bioactive glass compositions using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Boron acts as a network former and it exists in glass network as both 3- and 4-coordinated units. Thus, its incorporation into the glass could modify its structure in a more complex way by forming B-O-P, B-O-B and B-O-Si bonds. These structural modifications could change the glass stability and its dissolution behaviour. Both properties are of immense interest to the development of new bioactive glass compositions. Furthermore, incorporation of fluorine into the glass is known to have beneficial effects. Such as helping bone formation and preventing dental caries by forming of fluorapatite. Therefore, understanding the fluorine’s structural role in greater detail is essential.
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