Fabrication of Mechanically Tunable and Bioactive Metal Scaffolds for Biomedical Applications

Summary

Bioactive and mechanically reliable metal scaffolds have been fabricated through a method which consists of two processes, dynamic freeze casting for the fabrication of porous Ti, and coating and densification of the Ti scaffolds. The densification process is simple, effective and applicable to the fabrication of functionally graded scaffolds.

Abstract

Biometal systems have been widely used for biomedical applications, in particular, as load-bearing materials. However, major challenges are high stiffness and low bioactivity of metals. In this study, we have developed a new method towards fabricating a new type of bioactive and mechanically reliable porous metal scaffolds-densified porous Ti scaffolds. The method consists of two fabrication processes, 1) the fabrication of porous Ti scaffolds by dynamic freeze casting, and 2) coating and densification of the porous scaffolds. The dynamic freeze casting method to fabricate porous Ti scaffolds allowed the densification of porous scaffolds by minimizing the chemical contamination and structural defects. The densification process is distinctive for three reasons. First, the densification process is simple, because it requires a control of only one parameter (degree of densification). Second, it is effective, as it achieves mechanical enhancement and sustainable release of biomolecules from porous scaffolds. Third, it has broad applications, as it is also applicable to the fabrication of functionally graded porous scaffolds by spatially varied strain during densification.

Introduction

While metallic biomaterials have been widely used as load-bearing implants and internal fixation devices because of their excellent mechanical strength and resilience,^1-3 they involve two critical challenges: 1) mechanical mismatch because metals are much stiffer than biological tissues, causing undesirable damages to the surrounding tissues and 2) low bioactivity that often results in poor interface with biological tissues, often provoking foreign body reactions (e.g., inflammation or thrombosis).^4-6 Porous metallic scaffolds have been proposed to promote bone ingrowth in the structures, improving bone-implant contact while the stress s....

Protocol

1. Fabrication of Porous Metal Scaffolds

1. Prepare Ti-camphene slurries by mixing commercially available Ti powder, camphene, and KD-4 after weighing the appropriate amounts of materials as described in Table 1 for porous Ti scaffolds with four initial porosities (40, 50, 60, and 70). Pour the slurries into 500 ml polyethylene (PE) bottles and rotate the bottles at 55 °C for 30 min in a ball-mill oven at 30 rpm.
2. Pour the slurries from the PE bottles into cylindrical aluminum (Al) molds with a diameter of 60 mm and a height of 60 mm. Seal each Al mold with the corresponding Al cover slip and rotate the molds in a ball-mill oven at a....

Results

The fabrication process used to produce porous Ti scaffolds is illustrated in Figure 1A. Ti powder is kept dispersed homogeneously in camphene by continuous rotation of the container at 44 °C for 12 hr and, while liquid camphene is fully solidified, any sediments of relatively heavy Ti powder can be minimized. As a result, the homogeneous Ti-camphene green body was produced using the dynamic freeze casting process as shown in Figure 1B, in which 3-dimensionally interconnected large camph.......

Discussion

While biometal systems have been widely used for biomedical applications, particularly, as load-bearing materials, high stiffness and low bioactivity of metals have been regarded as major challenges. In this study, we established the fabrication method of a new metal system, a densified porous metal scaffold which has biomimetic mechanical properties as well as bioactive surface with sustainable release behavior. The major advantages of our fabrication method include 1) no change in the previous dynamic freezing casting .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Titanium powder	Alfa Aesar	#42624	-325 mesh, 99.5% (metals basis)
Camphene	SigmaAldrich	#456055	95%, C10H16
KD-4	Croda	­	Hypermer, polymeric dispersant
Phosphate Buffer Solution (PBS)	Welgene	ML 008-01	­
Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)	Genoss Co.	-	>98% purity, 1 mg/ml
Ball mill oven	SAMHENUG ENERGY	SH-BDO150	­
Freeze dryer	Ilshin Lab.	PVTFD50A	­
Cold isostatic pressing (CIP) machine	SONGWON SYSTEMS	CIP 42260	­
Vaccum furnace	JEONG MIN INDUSTRIAL	JM-HP20	­
electical chaege machine	FANUC robocut	0iB	External use
Press machine	CG&S	AJP-200	­
Confocal laser scanning spectroscopy (CLSM)	Olympus	FluoView FV1000	External use