Bioceramics, Towards Nano-enabled Drug Delivery: A Mini Review

The word ceramic can be traced back to the Greek term keramos, meaning "a potter" or "pottery." Keramos in turn is related to an older Sanskrit root meaning "to burn." Thus the early Greeks used the term to mean "burned stuff" or "burned earth" when referring to products obtained through the action of fire upon earthy materials (1). "Ceramics" is defined in the Encyclopedia BRITANICA as "objects created from such naturally occurring raw materials as clay minerals and quartz sand, by shaping the material and then hardening it by firing at high temperatures to make the object stronger, harder, and less permeable to fluids". This broad classification includes structural clay products, whitewares, refractories, glasses, abrasives, cements and advanced ceramics which further divide into more specific classes, from dinnerware to the NASA's reusable, lightweight, ceramic tile for space shuttle program.