The influence of phosphorylation and freezing temperature on the mechanical properties of hydroxyapatite/chitosan composite as bone scaffold biomaterial

摘要

Biomaterials composite of hydroxyapatite/chitosan is a preeminent material for medical applications including bone scaffold. To improve its mechanical properties, the chitosan as the matrix needs to be modified with particular chemical agents. One of the methods is phosphorylation of chitosan by using orthophosphoric acid prior to the biomaterials fabrication. In the current study, biomaterials with the weight composition of 70% hydroxyapatite (HA) and 30% phosphorylated chitosan have been fabricated using thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) method with freezing temperature variation of -20, -30, -4- and -80°C prior to three day-freeze drying. The results obtained by this work showed that the highest compression modulus of 376.9 kPa, highest compressive strength of 38.4 kPa and biggest pore size of 48.24μm were achieved in the freezing temperature of -20°C. In comparison to non-phosphorylated chitosan/hydroxyapatite, the modification of chitosan using orthophosphoric acid in this work has been found to increase the compressive strength of composite up to 5.5 times.