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On the structural, mechanical, and biodegradation properties of HA/β‐TCP robocast scaffolds
Author(s) -
Houmard Manuel,
Fu Qiang,
Genet Martin,
Saiz Eduardo,
Tomsia Antoni P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part b: applied biomaterials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1552-4981
pISSN - 1552-4973
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.b.32935
Subject(s) - porosity , materials science , scaffold , compressive strength , composite number , ceramic , simulated body fluid , composite material , chemical engineering , cancellous bone , degradation (telecommunications) , tissue engineering , biomedical engineering , scanning electron microscope , surgery , medicine , telecommunications , computer science , engineering
Hydroxyapatite/β‐tricalcium phosphate (HA/β‐TCP) composite scaffolds have shown great potential for bone‐tissue engineering applications. In this work, ceramic scaffold with different HA/β‐TCP compositions (pure HA, 60HA/40β‐TCP, and 20HA/80β‐TCP) were fabricated by a robotic‐assisted deposition (robocasting) technique using water‐based hydrogel inks. A systematic study was conducted to investigate the porosity, mechanical property, and degradation of the scaffolds. Our results indicate that, at a similar volume porosity, the mechanical strength of the sintered scaffolds increased with the decreasing rod diameter. The compressive strength of the fabricated scaffolds (porosity ≈ 25–80 vol %) varied between ∼3 and ∼50 MPa, a value equal or higher than that of human cancellous bone (2–12 MPa). Although there was a slight increase of Ca and P ions in water after 5 month, no noticeable degradation of the scaffolds in SBF or water was observed. Our findings from this work indicate that composite calcium phosphate scaffolds with customer‐designed chemistry and architecture may be fabricated by a robotic‐assisted deposition method. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 101B: 1233–1242, 2013.