ABSTRACT
Recently, it has been directing some special attention to the development of new manufacturing processes, with engineering applications in human tissues [11 FALLAHIAREZOUDAR, E., AHMADIPOURROUDPOSHT, M., IDRIS, A., et al, “A review of: applica-tion of synthetic scaffold in tissue engineering heart valves”, Materials Science & Engineering C, Materials for Biological Applications, v. 48, pp. 556-565, 2015.]. 3D printing applied to tissue engineering requires pulse computational techniques such as stereolithographic modeling, and special manufacturing processes, to name a few; Laser Sintering or Extrusion Deposition [22 GIANNITELLI, S. M., ACCOTO, D., TROMBETTA, M., et al, “Current trends in the design of scaffolds for computeraided tissue engineering”, Acta Biomaterialia, v. 10, n.2, pp. 580-594, 2014.]. Despite the advances, applications have been limited due to the characteristics and properties of the materials used, so they must meet the biomaterial conditions. On the other hand, biomimicry of materials should be biologically and mechanically imitated when possible on the aim and surrounding tissue. The architecture of these materials must allow adhesion, nucleation, growth, proliferation and transport of living cells for tissue regeneration [33 TANG, D., TARE, R. S., YANG, L.-Y., et al, “Biofabrication of bone tissue: Approaches, challenges and translation for bone regeneration”, Biomaterials, v. 83, pp. 363-382, 2016.]. Hence, it is exhibited the importance of getting porous scaffolds [44 TORRES, Y., LASCANO, S., BRIS, J., et al., “Development of porous titanium for biomedical applications: A comparison between loose sintering and space-holder techniques”, Materials Science and Engineering C, v. 37, n.1, pp. 148-155, 2014.].
In the present work, titanium was obtained with different levels of porosity (metal sponges), in order to locate an average convenient pore size.
The synthesis of metal sponges was performed by pulsed current assisted sintering using a spacer. The content of the spacer modifies the temperature gradient during the synthesis; however it was noted that the morphological characteristics of the material and crystal were unchanged. During sintering, the operating conditions were constant and reproducible. The properties and composition of the materials obtained were analyzed and compared to commercial materials. The results suggest that this material could be successfully used in clinical applications.
Keywords
biomaterial; sintered; scaffold; titanium sponge
