Preparation and Characterization of Porous Titania Ceramic Scaffolds

Biocompatible ceramics have recently attracted increasing attention as porous scaffolds that stimulate and guide natural bone regeneration. Due to excellent biocompatibility of titania (titanium dioxide or TiO2) porous three-dimensional (3D) TiO2 structures have been proposed as promising scaffolding materials for inducing bone formation from the surrounding environment and for enhancement of vascularisation after implantation. In this paper, 3D porous TiO2 ceramic scaffolds were produced via polymer foam replica method. This work deals with several important issues that are considered to be important for 3D scaffolds applied to regenerate bone tissue: pore size, porosity and mechanical strength. TiO2 ceramic scaffolds with pore size 300 μm − 700 μm and porosity > 90 % were obtained. Scaffolds showed fully open and interconnected pore structure that remained after recoating them with low viscosity TiO2 slurry. By optimising thermal treatment conditions grain growth and collapse of struts could be controlled in a way that resulted in higher compressive strength. Recoating greatly improved compressive strength and it reached 0.74±0.08 MPa after two coatings without causing changes in the open porestructure.