Preparation of chitosan/silk fibroin/hydroxyapatite porous scaffold and its characteristics in comparison to bi‐component scaffolds

Abstract

Abstract Composite porous scaffolds have attracted extensive attention in the biomedical material field. The aim of this research was to prepare a novel tri‐component composite porous scaffold and to evaluate its relevant properties. The porous scaffold was composed of chitosan (CS), silk fibroin (SF), and nanohydroxyapatite particles (nHA), which we named CS/SF/nHA scaffold and prepared via salt fractionation method combined with lyophilization. The porous structure was achieved using a porogen (salt), and the pore size was controlled by the size of porogen. To evaluate the characteristics of the tri‐component scaffold, three bi‐component scaffolds, CS/SF, CS/nHA, and SF/nHA, were simultaneously prepared for comparison. The scaffolds were subjected to morphological, micro‐structural, and biodegradation analyses. Results demonstrated that all of the scaffolds had pore sizes of 100–300 μm and a porosity of 90.5–96.1%. The biodegradation characteristics of all scaffolds meet the requirements of good biomedical materials. The investigation of the mechanical properties showed that the tri‐component scaffold has better properties than the bi‐component scaffolds. The in vitro biocompatibility with osteoblast‐like MG‐63 cells showed that all the scaffolds are suitable for cell attachment and proliferation; however, the CS/SF/nHA composite porous scaffold is much more effective than the others. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 102A: 366–372, 2014.