High Surface Area Nanomacroporous Bioactive Glass Scaffold for Hard Tissue Engineering

Formation of sufficiently large three-dimensional (3D) nanomacroporosity in bone scaffolds remains a challenge in spite of several methods reported in literature. It is required for tissue ingrowth and for the concurrent degradation of implanted structure. We report a new technique for fabricating superior high surface area, nanomacroporous bioactive glass scaffold, which combines the sol-gel process and polymer sponge replication method. The formation of 3D structure is demonstrated in 70 mol% SiO(2)-30 mol% CaO glass composition as an example, which is uniform across the sample. It consists of open, interconnected macropores with size from 300 to 600 mu m, as desired for tissue ingrowth. At the same time, coexisting nanopores provide high-specific surface area (similar to 184 m2/g), which is needed for enhancing the structure's degradation rate. These bioscaffolds hold promise for applications in hard tissue engineering.