Macroporous calcium phosphate glass-ceramic prepared by two-step pressing technique and using sucrose as a pore former.

Macroporous calcium phosphate glass-ceramic with an initial glass composition of 60CaO.30P2O5.3TiO2.7Na2O in mol% was successfully prepared by sintering the mixture compact consisting of calcium phosphate glass and sucrose powders, which was formed using a two-step pressing technique. After burning off the sucrose phase, a 3D interconnected macroporous structure was formed in the sintered body, in which the skeleton consisting of the calcium phosphate glass-ceramic (including beta-calcium pyrophosphate and beta-tricalcium phosphate as the crystalline phases) was transformed from the initial glass during the sintering. The macropores with several hundred microns in diameter and the large interconnection size (approximately 100 microm), which result from the controllably large-sized sucrose particles and the hot-pressing at a little higher temperature than the sucrose's melting point, are believed to meet the requirements for cell adhesion and bone tissue regeneration well. Moreover, in vitro dissolution behavior study indicates that the calcium phosphate glass-ceramic is soluble to an acetic acid solution of pH 5-7. These, together with the simplicity and feasibility of the innovative fabrication method itself, show that the formed porous glass-ceramic has a promising potential for application to a scaffold for bone tissue engineering.