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.