A simple sol-gel route to the construction of hydroxyapatite inverted colloidal crystals for bone tissue engineering
- Citation:
- João, Carlos, Rute Almeida, Jorge Carvalho Silva, and João Paulo Borges. "A simple sol-gel route to the construction of hydroxyapatite inverted colloidal crystals for bone tissue engineering." Materials Letters 185 (2016): 407-410.
Abstract:
Hydroxyapatite (HAp) scaffolds with uniform pore size and interconnected pore network were constructed based on the inverted colloidal crystal (ICC) geometry and a simple sol-gel formulation. Monodisperse polystyrene microspheres were self-assembled and annealed into a hexagonal close packed structure. HAp sol-gel was infiltrated in this template followed by thermal treatment for simultaneous HAp matrix sintering and polymeric colloidal crystal calcination. The resultant ICC scaffolds exhibit an ordered architecture that was able to offer a favorable environment for human osteoblasts adhesion and proliferation, an essential feature for bone ingrowth in tissue engineering applications.