Nanostructured forsterite coating strengthens porous hydroxyapatite for bone tissue engineering

Many attempts have been focused on preparing highly porous scaffolds with appropriate mechanical strength. This paper has developed a new route to enhance the compressive strength of porous hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffold (porosity: ∼83%, mean pore size: ∼740 μm). Briefly, this route included a nanostructure coating of forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄) on struts of porous HA. The coating microstructure consisted of the grains with the range between 35 and 80 nm and nanosize pores that could be detected by scanning electron microscopy observation. This simple method improved the compressive strength of highly porous HA from 0.12 to 1.61 MPa. The scaffolds obtained provided a good mechanical support while maintaining bioactivity, and hence they could be used as tissue engineering scaffolds for low-load-bearing applications.