A preliminary study on a highly porous nano calcium phosphate bioceramic scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

In this study, a novel nano calcium phosphate biomaterial have been fabricated with the aim of finding a good candidate as scaffold for bone tissue engineering, in terms of porous structures and biocompatibility. The scaffold was investigated by a combination of X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy, mercury intrusion porosimetry and BET. It was shown that the scaffold was characterized by a uniformly dispersed porous structure. The porous scaffold has not only macropores of 0.1–1mm size but also a lot of micropores of 100µ m –0.1µ m size within macropore walls, as well as meso-porous under 100nm size within the walls of them. The porosity can be controlled in 70%-90%. Then we observed the biological response of pre-osteoblasts (MC 3T3-E1) on the scaffold by MTT assay. The results indicated that this scaffold maintain well-developed structure morphology, physicochemical properties and good cytocompatibility. It suggests that it can be potential candidate materials for bone regeneration and tissue engineering.