Cytotoxicity Evaluation of Bioactive Glass-Polyvinyl Alcohol Hybrid Foams Prepared by the Sol-Gel Method

Hybrid bioactive glass-polyvinyl alcohol foams for use as scaffolds in tissue engineering were developed through the sol-gel route. Hybrids produced by this route present a high acidic character due to the catalysts added during processing and may also contain residual organics after the drying step. Therefore, an additional cleaning step is necessary to produce biocompatible materials. In this study hybrid PVA/bioactive glass foams were cleaned using various procedures and cytotoxicity evaluation was conducted. All the cleaning methods used increased the cell viability levels compared to samples not subjected to a cleaning procedure. The most effective cleaning procedure used was the immersion in NH4OH solution. The cleaning procedure changed the composition and pore structure of the final material.