Preparation and Characterization of Freeze-Dried β-Tricalcium Phosphate/Barium Titanate/Collagen Composite Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering in Orthopedic Applications

Abstract

The freeze-drying method creates a scaffold with a composite mesoporous structure with many advantages. However, everyday materials such as β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) have been used as an orthopedic implant for canine tribal bone defects for decades, for instance, for grafting material of even shapes to form an implant for our teeth. However, this material is still not entirely expected to be the best implant due to its high biodegradability. Besides that, using the piezoelectric effect on the bone can lead to more efficiency in cell growth and a faster healing time for patients. Based on this phenomenon, a scaffold composite with a piezoelectric material such as barium titanate (BaTiO3/BT) has been tested. Based on the BT/β-TCP ratio, the scaffold composite of BT and β-TCP produces a porous structure with porosity ranging from 30.25 ± 11.28 to 15.25 ± 11.28 μm. The BT/β-TCP ratio influences the samples’ pore type, which affects each sample’s mechanical properties. In our result, the scaffold of 45.0 wt% BT/45.0 wt% β-TCP/10.0 wt% collagen has achieved a significant value of 0.5 MPa for maximum stress with a sufficient pore size of 25.32 ± 8.05 μm. Finally, we performed a viability test to see the sample’s piezoelectric effect, which showed that the piezoelectric effect does increase bone healing time when tested by growing MC3T3-E1 cells on the samples.