Bioactive glass and hybrid scaffolds prepared by sol–gel method for bone tissue engineering

Tissue engineering is an important technique for regenerating diseased or damaged tissues. In tissue engineering, a highly porous artificial extracellular matrix or scaffold is required to accommodate cells and guide their growth and tissue regeneration in three dimensions. The choice of scaffolding material is crucial to the success of the technique. Bioactive glasses are an option as scaffold material for bone tissue engineering owing to their recognised osteoconductive and osteoinductive properties and controllable degradation rate. Resorbable 3D macroporous bioactive scaffolds have been produced by foaming sol–gel derived bioactive glasses with the aid of a surfactant. The foams exhibit a hierarchical structure, with interconnected macropores (10–600 μm) and mesopores (2–50 nm). The effects of processing variables on the structure and properties of the obtained bioactive glass foams are discussed in the present paper. The method is then applied to produce bioactive glass–polymer (polyvinyl alcohol) hybrid scaffolds with improved mechanical properties.