A dual processing strategy to obtain customized and aerogel-based bone scaffolds

Bone is the second largest transplanted tissue worldwide, but the reconstruction of bone defects presents only two main surgical options: biological and synthetic grafts. Bone defects resulting from tumors, infections, or trauma particularly impact in the wellness and life quality of elderly people and represent high sociosanitary costs for health systems.

 3D-printing is a cutting-edge technology that allows the fabrication of implants with personalized and complex external morphologies and compositions. Nevertheless, 3D-printed scaffolds usually lack a control in the nanostructural levels. For this reason, the generation of 3D-scaffolds with a well-defined external and internal structures is still a challenge in bone tissue engineering. The supercritical fluids technology based on the use of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) is a commonly employed technique to preserve gel properties in the dry state as well as to obtain structures with an advanced textural performance.

In this work aerogel scaffolds were obtained by the 3D-printing of alginate-HA inks and the scCO₂ drying of the hydrogel-based scaffolds. The textural and biological performance of the different formulations studied were evaluated regarding bone tissue engineering applications by nitrogen adsorption/desorption, SEM analysis and by cyto- and hemocompatibility assays.

The work entitled “3D-printed alginate-hydroxyapatite aerogel scaffolds for bone tissue engineering” has been published in Material Science and Engineering C. journal (I.F. 7.328) on December 2021.