Microwave assisted rapid synthesis of PVA/agarose/n-HAp porous bio-composite scaffold for bone tissue engineering application

Abstract Microwave (MW) assisted rapid synthesis procedure was implemented to prepare polyvinyl alcohol/n-hydroxyapatite bio-composite scaffolds (PVA/agarose/n-HAp (PAH)) using agarose as a crosslinker. The MW-assisted synthesis with two heating cycles (600 and 900 W) allowed the fastest formation and homogenous distribution of n-HAp within the polymeric matrix. The freeze-drying process was used to fabricate a porous bio-composite. The average crystallite size of the synthesized n-HAp was 9.7 nm. The MW-assisted method took only 8–10 min to synthesize n-HAp, while the conventional method took 24 h. The obtained bio-composites were highly porous and the porosity obtained for PAH1 and PAH3 were 62 % and 65 %, respectively. However, the porosity decreased to nearly half (31 % and 38 % for PAH2 and PAH4, respectively) while doubling the n-HAp content. The highest swelling was obtained for PAH3 in both water and PBS at 167 % and 498 %. The highest tensile strength and modulus were obtained for PAH1 at 29 MPa and 1.4 Gpa which is higher than the tensile strength and modulus of Conv. PAH (20 MPa and 0.74 GPa, respectively) and many porous PVA/HAp scaffolds reported. The fabricated scaffolds are biocompatible, porous, possess good mechanical properties, and are suitable for application in bone tissue engineering.