Room temperature synthesis of agarose/sol–gel glass pieces with tailored interconnected porosity

An original shaping technique has been applied to prepare porous bodies at room temperature. Agarose, a biodegradable polysaccharide, was added as binder of a sol–gel glass in powder form, yielding an easy to mold paste. Interconnected tailored porous bodies can be straightforwardly prepared by pouring the slurry into a polymeric scaffold, previously designed by stereolitography, which is subsequently eliminated by alkaline dissolution at room temperature. The so obtained pieces behave like a hydrogel with an enhanced consistency that makes them machinable and easy to manipulate. These materials generate an apatite‐like layer when immersed in a simulated body fluid, indicating a potential in vivo bioactivity. The proposed method can be applied to different powdered materials to produce pieces, at room temperature, with various shapes and sizes and with tailored interconnected porosity. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 2006