Salt leaching using powder (SLUP) process for glass/chitosan scaffold elaboration for biomaterial applications

Tissue engineering has emerged as an alternative approach to create bone tissue by growing cells on 3D scaffolding. The aim of this study was to synthesize a composite glass/chitosan (BG-CH) by using new salt leaching using powder (SLUP) process in order to control the porosity rate and then the chemical reactivity of the final product. SLUP process consists on the cavity creation with desired pore sizes. It does not require heat treatment. This process is based on washing out the NaCl particles used for that. It is due to its high solubility in aqueous media. This work focuses on the elaboration, physicochemical, and chemical reactivity studies of pure bioactive glass and bioactive glass associated with chitosan. A range of composite scaffolds with different bioactive glass/chitosan contents has been synthesized. NaCl with a distinct range size was used with the aim of optimizing the pore network. Obtained results show that the specific surface area and pore volume increase with increasing of chitosan and porogen content. The same observations for pore volume were registered. The obtained scaffolds had high porosity (90%) with good pore connectivity. SEM images revealed strong dependence of sizes and shapes of pores on the salt/composite ratios.