Modeling porous scaffold microstructure by a reaction–diffusion system and its degradation by hydrolysis

Abstract 

One of the most important areas of Tissue Engineering is the research about bone regeneration and the replacement of its function. To meet this requirement, scaffolds have been developed to allow the cell migration, the growth of bone tissue, the transport of growth factors and nutrients and the renovation of the mechanical properties of bone. Scaffolds are made of different biomaterials and manufactured using various techniques that, in some cases, do not allow full control over the size and orientation of the pores that characterize the scaffold microstructure. From this perspective, we propose a novel hypothesis that a reaction–diffusion system can be used to design the geometrical specifications of the bone matrix. The validation of this hypothesis is performed by simulations of the reaction–diffusion system in a representative tridimensional unit cell, coupled with a model of scaffold degradation by hydrolysis. The results show the possibility that a Reaction–Diffusion system can control features such as the percentage of porosity, trabecular size, orientation, and interconnectivity of pores.

Keywords: Bone materials, Scaffolds, Reaction–diffusion, Hydrolysis, Finite elements