Fabrication of Bioceramic Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Using Additive Manufacturing Technology

Abstract

In this paper, the hydroxyapatite (HA) based bioceramic materials were used in a rapid prototyping (RP) system to fabrication bioceramic bone scaffold for tissue engineering (TE) using an additive manufacturing (AM) technology. When the bioceramic slurry is sintered via the processing parameters of an 85 mm/s laser scanning speed, 24.5 W of laser power, 10 kHz of scanning frequency, and 2500 Cp of slurry viscosity, a porous bone scaffold can be fabricated under a lower laser power energy. Results indicate that the bending strength of the scaffold was 14.2 MPa, which could be improved by heat-treatment at 1200 °C for 2 hour. MTT method and SEM observations confirmed that the fabricated bone scaffolds possess suitable biocompatibility and mechanical properties, allowing smooth adhesion and proliferation of osteoblast-like cells. Therefore, the fabricated bone scaffolds have great potential for development in tissue engineering.