Synthesis of biomedical composite scaffolds by laser sintering: Mechanical properties and in vitro bioactivity evaluation

Graphical abstract: Synthesis of biomedical composite scaffold obtained by selective laser sintering. - Highlights: • A layer additive manufacturing technique for fabricating the bio-composites scaffolds is developed. • The slurry state biomaterials are solidified via a laser beam in a self-developed apparatus. • The osteoblast-like cells can be cultured on the scaffold. • This technology has potential for fabricating the bone scaffolds in tissue engineering. - Abstract: In this study, biomedical composite materials were employed to fabricate bone scaffolds using a self-developed rapid prototyping (RP) apparatus. The slurry formed by combining hydroxyapatite (HA), silica sol, and sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) was heated by a CO2 laser. Under appropriate processing parameters, a biocomposite green body was subsequently fabricated. Its mechanical properties, including surface roughness, bending and compression strengths, volume shrinkage rate, and surface microstructure, were analyzed after heat treatment to 1200 °C, 1300 °C, and 1400 °C. The results showed that after heating the specimen to 1200 °C, its compression and bending strengths increased significantly to 43.26 MPa and 1.28 MPa, respectively; the surface roughness was 12 μm; and surface pores were of size 5–25 μm. Furthermore, the results of WST-1 and LDH assay indicate that the biocomposites showed no cytotoxicity on 3T3 fibroblast. An optical density (OD) of 1.1 was also achieved, and the specimen was suitable for the adhesion and growth of osteoblast-like cells (MG63). Therefore, the biocomposite bone scaffolds fabricated in this study have potential to be bone implants for developing hard tissue