Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamilnadu, 600036, India.
Sci Rep. 2020 May 13;10(1):7914. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-64757-z.
Freeze casting has emerged as one of the most promising manufacturing methods to fabricate porous scaffolds in recent years. This is due to various reasons which include a wide range of materials which can be used in this process, easiness of the process, etc. One of the major objectives of this work was to fabricate bone-like structure by using a modified freeze casting process. In this work, Hydroxyapatite and Tricalcium phosphate scaffolds with bone-like structure were fabricated by understanding and utilizing the basic physics of freeze casting. Thermal conductivity of the base plate is a crucial factor for obtaining controlled pore and porosity distribution in a porous scaffold. It was found that designing the base plate with variable thermal conductivity has led to the formation of bone-like structure. Porous scaffolds were quantitatively analyzed for pore size and porosity distribution at center and circumference. Porosity at circumference was observed to be approximately dropped by 55%, a similar trend was seen for pore size. Therefore, it was significant evidence that modified freeze casting has capable in fabricating bone-like structures with ease and good control. This will open many new applications of porous scaffolds in biomedical, energy devices, chemical catalyst and many more.
近年来，冷冻铸造已成为制造多孔支架最有前途的方法之一。这是由于多种原因，包括可以在该过程中使用的广泛的材料，以及该过程的易用性等。这项工作的主要目标之一是通过使用改进的冷冻铸造工艺来制造类似骨骼的结构。在这项工作中，通过了解和利用冷冻铸造的基本物理原理，制造了具有类似骨骼结构的羟基磷灰石和磷酸三钙支架。基板的导热系数是在多孔支架中获得可控孔和孔隙分布的关键因素。结果发现，通过设计具有可变导热系数的基板，形成了类似骨骼的结构。对中心和圆周处的孔径和孔隙分布进行了定量分析。观察到圆周处的孔隙率下降了约 55%，孔径也呈现出相似的趋势。因此，这是一个重要的证据，表明改进的冷冻铸造具有易于控制的制造类似骨骼结构的能力。这将为多孔支架在生物医学、能源设备、化学催化剂等领域的应用开辟许多新的途径。
