Abstract
The design of scaffolds with optimal biomechanical properties for load-bearing applications is an important topic of research. Most studies have addressed this problem by focusing on the material composition and not on the coupled effect between the material composition and the scaffold architecture. Polymer–bioglass scaffolds have been investigated due to the excellent bioactivity properties of bioglass, which release ions that activate osteogenesis. However, material preparation methods usually require the use of organic solvents that induce surface modifications on the bioglass particles, compromising the adhesion with the polymeric material thus compromising mechanical properties. In this paper, we used a simple melt blending approach to produce polycaprolactone/bioglass pellets to construct scaffolds with pore size gradient. The results show that the addition of bioglass particles improved the mechanical properties of the scaffolds and, due to the selected architecture, all scaffolds presented mechanical properties in the cortical bone region. Moreover, the addition of bioglass indicated a positive long-term effect on the biological performance of the scaffolds. The pore size gradient also induced a cell spreading gradient.
Highlights
The use of additive manufacturing techniques, known as 3D printing, for the fabrication of customised bone tissue engineering architectures has developed very rapidly [1,2,3]
This study investigated the behaviour of PCL–Bioglass 45S5 3D printed scaffolds
The blends were mixed for at least an hour to guarantee a good bioglass dispersion
Summary
The use of additive manufacturing techniques, known as 3D printing, for the fabrication of customised bone tissue engineering architectures has developed very rapidly [1,2,3]. Different techniques have been used for the fabrication of bone scaffolds [8,9,10,11,12], such as: vat photopolymerisation, which uses light to selectively solidify a liquid photo-sensitive polymeric material; powder-bed fusion, which uses a laser beam to selectively fuse powder material; and extrusion-based processes, which heat materials in a pellet or filament form to solidify the molten material in a printing platform Among these techniques, extrusion-based additive manufacturing is the most commonly used due to its low cost, high simplicity and ability to print multiple materials [13,14,15]. Contrary to previously reported studies that investigated simple rectangular and circular scaffold architectures, this research investigated anatomically designed scaffolds with pore size gradients that mimicked the architecture of bone and aimed to improve the overall mechanical behaviour of the scaffolds and thereby making them suitable for load-bearing applications [55,56,57]
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