Fabrication and Multiscale Structural Properties of Interconnected Porous Biomaterial for Tissue Engineering by Freeze Isostatic Pressure (FIP)

Biomaterial for tissue engineering is a topic of huge progress with a recent surge in fabrication and characterization advances. Biomaterials for tissue engineering applications or as scaffolds depend on various parameters such as fabrication technology, porosity, pore size, mechanical strength, and surface available for cell attachment. To serve the function of the scaffold, the porous biomaterial should have enough mechanical strength to aid in tissue engineering. With a new manufacturing technology, we have obtained high strength materials by optimizing a few processing parameters such as pressure, temperature, and dwell time, yielding the monolith with porosity in the range of 80%-93%. The three-dimensional interconnectivity of the porous media through scales for the newly manufactured biomaterial has been investigated using newly developed 3D correlative and multi-modal imaging techniques. Multiscale X-ray tomography, FIB-SEM Slice & View stacking, and high-resolution STEM-EDS electronic tomography observations have been combined allowing quantification of morphological and geometrical spatial distributions of the multiscale porous network through length scales spanning from tens of microns to less than a nanometer. The spatial distribution of the wall thickness has also been investigated and its possible relationship with pore connectivity and size distribution has been studied.