Porous 45S5Bioglass®-based scaffolds using sterelithography:Effect of partial pre-sintering on structural and mechanical properties of scaffolds

摘要

Scaffolds made from 45S5 Bioglass® ceramic (BG) show clinical potential in bone regeneration due to their ex¬ cellent bioactivity and ability to bond to natural bone tissue. However, porous BG scaffolds are limited by their mechanical integrity and by the substantial volume contractions occurring upon sintering. This study examines stereolithographic (SLA) methods to fabricate mechanically robust and porous Bioglass®-based ceramic scaf¬ folds, with regular and interconnected pore networks and using various computer-aided design architectures. It was found that a diamond-like (DM) architecture gave scaffolds the most controllable results without any ob¬ servable closed porosity in the fired scaffolds. When the pore dimensions of the DM scaffolds of the same porosity (～60 vol%) were decreased from 700 to 400 μm, the compressive strength values increased from 3.5 to 6.7 MPa. In addition, smaller dimensional shrinkage could be obtained by employing partially pre-sintered bioglass, com¬ pared to standard 45S5 Bioglass®. Scaffolds derived from pre-sintered bioglass also showed marginally improved compressive strength.