Effect of polyurethane (PU) – bioactive glass (BG) ratio on the development of BG reinforced PU scaffold

Abstract

Abstract. Nowadays, variety of biomaterials may be used to produce implanted scaffolds such as metal-based, ceramicbased and polymer-based materials. In this study, porous bioactive glass (BG) reinforced polyurethane (PU) composite scaffolds with different PU:BG mass ratio (10 to 40 wt%) were fabricated as a potential candidate for synthetic bone graft. The PU-BG scaffolds were prepared using solvent casting combined with salt leaching (SCPL) method and were subjected to several characterizations including fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). FTIR spectrum showed the trace of BG particles in the PU-BG scaffolds with high concentration of BG (30 and 40 wt%). EDX confirmed that the white particles in the PU-BG scaffold as observed via SEM micrograph were BG particles. A slightly round and irregular pore structures were observed for the PU-BG scaffolds prepared in this study. More homogeneous pore structures were observed as the amount of BG in the PU-BG scaffold is increased. The overall pore size for all scaffolds was in the range of 130 to 400 μm which is suitable for the growth of bone tissue.

Optimization of the electrospinning process variables for gelatin/silver nanoparticles/bioactive glass nanocomposites for bone tissue engineering

“…FTIR spectra showed that the Ag‐NPs addition was not effective on the functional groups in the gelatin nanofiber structure, but BG content had the effect of reducing the density of the functional groups. It can be argued that the reason why the characteristic bands of the BG are not visible is because of the overlapping Gt bands …”