Structural and mechanical properties of CEL2 bioglass scaffolds doped with ZnO, SrO, and CuO fabricated by powder technology for its application in bone tissue engineering

In the present work, the undoped and doped CEL2 bioglasses were synthesized by the conventional melt-quenching technique whose generic composition was 45SiO₂–3P₂O₅–(26 − x)CaO–15Na₂O–7MgO–4K₂O–xMO, where x = 0 and 2 and M = Zn, Sr, and Cu in moles. The effect of the addition of dopants on their thermal behavior was studied by differential scanning calorimetry, aside from their microstructure and formation of crystalline phases. The undoped and doped CEL2 scaffolds were fabricated by the combined method of powder technology and polymer foaming. The undoped scaffolds presented 74% porosity while those doped with ZnO and SrO slightly increased the percentage of porosity by 4 and 5%, respectively; however, the addition of CuO decreased their porosity by 8%. The scaffolds doped with CuO presented the best resistance with a value of 2 ± 0.02 MPa, unlike those made with CEL2, CEL2-ZnO, and CEL2-SrO with values of 1 ± 0.09, 0.84 ± 0.17, and 0.82 ± 0.27 MPa, respectively.