Melt development of biphasic functionally graded scaffold

Abstract

Interface tissue engineering requires scaffolds that temporary replace the mechanical function of transition regions between two adjacent tissues. The presence of multi-phasic bio-structures that gradually change are typical features of interface tissues such as ligament-to-bone, tendon-to-bone and cartilage-to-bone. In this work, bi-layered scaffolds (BLS) composed by PLA with pores in the range of 90-110 µm and PCL with pores ranging from 5 to 40 µm were prepared by combining melt mixing, compression molding and particulate leaching. The principal advantages of this method lay in the absence of organic solvent during the preparation and in the easy control and high predictability of porosity and pore size.