Effect of Freezing Temperature on the Pore Formation of Beta Tricalcium Phosphate Scaffold

Abstract

Beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) has been widely used for biomedical application due to its excellent mechanical strength, good tissue compatibility and outstanding chemical stability. There are several methods to fabricate porous scaffolds including solvent casting, phase separation, rapid prototyping and electrospinning methods. In the present study, β-TCP scaffolds were fabricated using freeze drying method. β-TCP slurry was frozen and freeze dried for 24 hours followed by sintering process to form β-TCP scaffolds. The porous β-TCP scaffold were fabricated at different percentages of β-TCP powder used (10 wt. %, 20 wt. % and 30 wt. %) and froze at different freezing temperature (-10°C, -20°C, -40°C and -80°C) in order to study the effect of these parameters on the pore formation of the scaffolds. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis for 30 wt. % β-TCP scaffold frozen at -10°C revealed acceptable pore size distribution with majority pore size within the range of 102.65 μm to 372.90 μm. Furthermore, this scaffold also possessed highest compressive strength of 0.31 MPa.