Preparation and Optimization of Porous HA Ceramic Scaffolds by Wax Spheres Leaching Method

Interconnectivity of tissue engineering scaffolds plays a very important role in biological performance in vivo. In this work, chitin sol and wax spheres were used for preparing porous hydroxyapatite (HA) ceramics scaffolds by particle leaching and gel-casting methods. Under the same mounded casting condition, the effect of ratio of slurry/wax pore former on porosity, shrinkage, interconnectivity, porous structure and compressive strength were investigated systematically. Porous HA ceramic scaffolds were evaluated by gravimetric method, stereomicroscope, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and universal testing machine. The results show that the present method is an effective method to fabricate a highly porous HA ceramic scaffolds. With increasing the ratio of slurry/wax spheres, the interconnectivity gets better and the optimal ratio of slurry/wax spheres is 1:1.2.