Dentistry Commons^™

From Solvent-Free Microspheres To Bioactive Gradient Scaffolds, Morta Rasoulianboroujeni, Mostafa Yazdimamaghani, Payam Khoshkenar, Venkata Raveendra Pothineni, Kwang-Min Kim, Teresa A. Murray, Jayakumar Rajadas, David K. Mills, Daryoosh Vashaee, Keyvan Moharamzadeh, Lobat Tayebi

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

A solvent-free microsphere sintering technique was developed to fabricate scaffolds with pore size gradient for tissue engineering applications. Poly(D,L-Lactide) microspheres were fabricated through an emulsification method where TiO₂ nanoparticles were employed both as particulate emulsifier in the preparation procedure and as surface modification agent to improve bioactivity of the scaffolds. A fine-tunable pore size gradient was achieved with a pore volume of 30 ± 2.6%. SEM, EDX, XRD and FTIR analyses all confirmed the formation of bone-like apatite at the 14^th day of immersion in Simulated Body Fluid (SBF) implying the ability of our scaffolds to bond to …