Effect of magnesium silicate on 3D gel‐printing of hydroxyapatite ceramic composite scaffold

Abstract The hydroxyapatite scaffolds doped with MgSiO ₃ were prepared by 3D gel‐printing technology in this study. The effect of MgSiO ₃ on the scaffold characteristics has been studied, and the composite ceramic scaffold with higher strength was obtained. The viscosity of different MgSiO ₃ weight percentages slurry decrease with the shear rate increasing. When the solid loading was 50 vol% and the shear rate was 100 S ⁻¹ , the viscosity of the slurry decrease with weight percent of MgSiO ₃ increasing. The scaffold has interconnected internal structures and the sintered body has a pore size of about 350‐620 μm. The porosity of the scaffolds with different weight percents of MgSiO ₃ is kept at 65%, and the scaffold with 3% MgSiO ₃ has the highest compressive strength of 93.15 MPa. As increasing weight percent of MgSiO ₃ , the compressive strength of the scaffold gradually decreases and remains at 40 MPa eventually. The ceramic scaffold with 3% MgSiO ₃ has better degradability than that of other weight percents of MgSiO ₃ . After soaking in Tris‐ HC l solution for 5 weeks, the weight loss of the scaffold reached 9.91%.