Controllable Preparation and in Vitro Bioactivity of Bioglass Microspheres via Spray Drying Method

The CaO-SiO 2 -P 2 O 5 bioglass (BG) microspheres with good bioactivity and osteoconductivity have been extensively studied for bone tissue engineering. Traditional melting method for preparing BG powders is high energy consumption, and difficult to control the morphology of BG. While Sol-Gel technique for BG preparation requires a large amount of organic solvent, long preparation period and low mass production. For the rapid and scalable preparation of BG microspheres with controllable morphology, particle size and chemical composition, an efficient strategy of spray drying of precursor solution was proposed in this study, and the effects of process parameters including inlet air volume, precursor solution concentration and feed rate on the particle size of BG microspheres, and the effect of chemical composition on the apatite formation ability of BG microspheres in vitro were investigated. The results showed that the particle sizes of BG microspheres via spray drying could be controlled below 40 m, and the particle sizes of BG microspheres increased with the concentration of precursor solution, and decreased