FABRICATION AND EVALUATION OF SILICON-CONTAINING APATITE FIBER SCAFFOLDS FOR BONE TISSUE ENGINEERING

The aim of this work is to develop a highly-functional tissue engineering scaffold from silicon-containing apatite fibres (Si-AF). Firstly, Si-AFs were synthesized by a homogeneous precipitation method. Starting solution with a Ca/(P+Si) ratio of 1.67 was prepared by mixing Ca(NO3)24H2O, (NH4)2HPO4, Si(OC2H5)4 (TEOS), (NH2)2CO and HNO3. The concentrations of TEOS in the starting solution were 0 (AF), 0.8 (0.8Si-AF) and 1.6 (1.6Si-AF) mass%. Next, Si-AF scaffolds (Si-AFS) were fabricated by firing the compacts consisting of Si-AF and carbon beads of 150 m diameter. The resulting Si-AFSs were characterized using X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). Results showed that the material properties of the 0.8Si-AFS were similar to those of the conventional AFS without silicon. Consequently, we can conclude that the 0.8Si-AFS offers as a potential novel scaffold material, creating a three-dimensional cell culture environment. (Received March 29, 2012; Accepted April 9, 2012)