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In recent decades, porous silica-based bioceramic scaffolds have received great attention for treatment of bone defects. One of the main drawbacks of these scaffolds is their inherent brittle nature and high degradation rate. Recently, using bioactive and biodegradable polymer coatings on the surface of scaffolds improves their mechanical properties and the ability to control their degradation rate. In this work, highly porous diopside/baghdadite composite scaffolds with and without surface modification were prepared by space holder method. Compressive strength, compressive modules, porosity and the pore size of the different scaffolds with different diopside contents were in the range of 0.28–1.33 MPa, 15.35–155 MPa, 64–78%, and 300–500 μm, respectively. The results showed that applying a PCLF cross-linked polymer coating on the scaffolds improved their compressive strength and modulus from 1.09 ± 0.1 and 139.3 ± 1.1 to 1.63 ± 0.2 and 189.1 ± 1 MPa, respectively. A negligible reduction in porosity and pore size was observed.

A bioactive hardystonite (HT) - diopside (Dio) Nano-composite scaffold was fabricated by the space holder method. The structure, morphology and bioactivity potential of the Nano-composite scaffolds were examined using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The scaffold with optimized mechanical properties was HT-15 wt%Dio that had a total, interconnected porosity, micro and macro pore size of 77 ± 1%, 71 ± 1%, 40–80 μm and 400–500 μm, respectively, and a compressive modulus and strength and crystallite size of 45.45 MPa, 1.655 MPa and 41 nm, respectively. The feasibility of the produced scaffold for bone tissue engineering application was evaluated using simulated body fluid (SBF). A range of characterization techniques was applied to confirm the deposition of Hydroxyl carbonated apatite (HCA) deposition on the surface of HT-15%Dio scaffold following 7 days in SBF. Overall, results suggest that HT-15 wt%Dio Nano-composite scaffold with improved mechanical properties, pore size, porosity content and apatite formation ability can be a promising candidate for bone tissue engineering applications.

Despite the wide application of polycaprolactone (PCL) for bone tissue engineering application, its poor cellular interactions have resulted in the development of various strategies for surface modification. This paper established a surface modification approach based on gelatin immobilization on the PCL-3 wt. % diopside fibrous membrane. Moreover, the effects of swelling time on the amounts of immobilized gelatin were evaluated. Results demonstrated that gelatin was successfully immobilized within PCL-diopside membrane. Increasing swelling time from 5 to 30 min resulted in enhanced gelatin content. Moreover, while increasing swelling time upon 20 min did not significantly change the mechanical properties of gelatin-immobilized fibrous membranes, they reduced after 30 min swelling which might be due to the enhanced fiber and pore sizes as well as noticeably higher amount of immobilized gelatin within the membranes. Moreover, the hydrophilicity, biodegradation and bioactivity of PCL-3 wt. % diopside membrane significantly improved via gelatin immobilization. Finally, cellular behavior promoted because of the hydrophilic amino and carboxyl groups in the immobolized gelatin structure. Overall, our study suggested that gelatin immobilized PCL-diopside fibrous membranes could potentially be used to develop clinically revenant constructs for bone tissue engineering.

A significant challenge in bone tissue engineering is the development of 3D constructs serving as scaffolds to fill bone defects, support osteoblasts, and promote bone regeneration. In this paper, highly porous (∼79%) nanostructured diopside/biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) scaffolds with interconnected porosity were developed using various diopside contents via space holder method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques were utilized to evaluate different samples. Furthermore, the effects of scaffold composition on mechanical properties, bioactivity, biodegradability, and cytotoxicity were studied as well. The results showed that the produced scaffolds had an average pore size and density of 200–340 μm and 2.5 ± 0.3–1.8 ± 0.3 gr/cm 3 , respectively, depending on the diopside content. Besides, increasing the diopside content of scaffolds from 0 to 15 wt% enhanced the bioactivity, biodegradability, and compressive strength from 1.2 ± 0.2 to 3.2 ± 0.3 MPa, respectively. In addition, MTT assay also confirmed that the BCP15 scaffold (containing 15 wt% diopside) significantly promoted cell viability and cell adhesion compared to BCP0 scaffold. Overall, our study suggests that nanostructured diopside/BCP scaffolds with improved biological and mechanical properties could potentially be used for bone tissue engineering application.