Effect of polyurethane (PU) – bioactive glass (BG) ratio on the development of BG reinforced PU scaffold Open Access

Nowadays, variety of biomaterials may be used to produce implanted scaffolds such as metal-based, ceramic-based and polymer-based materials. In this study, porous bioactive glass (BG) reinforced polyurethane (PU) composite scaffolds with different PU:BG mass ratio (10 to 40 wt%) were fabricated as a potential candidate for synthetic bone graft. The PU-BG scaffolds were prepared using solvent casting combined with salt leaching (SCPL) method and were subjected to several characterizations including fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). FTIR spectrum showed the trace of BG particles in the PU-BG scaffolds with high concentration of BG (30 and 40 wt%). EDX confirmed that the white particles in the PU-BG scaffold as observed via SEM micrograph were BG particles. A slightly round and irregular pore structures were observed for the PU-BG scaffolds prepared in this study. More homogeneous pore structures were observed as the amount of BG in the PU-BG scaffold is increased. The overall pore size for all scaffolds was in the range of 130 to 400 µm which is suitable for the growth of bone tissue.