Porous bioceramics reinforced by coating gelatin.

Porous bioceramics with high porosity for bone tissue engineering were fabricated by the foam impregnation technique, but their mechanical strength was poor, only a mean compressive strength of 1.04+/-0.15 MPa and an mean elastic modulus of 0.1 GPa. In order to reinforce porous ceramics, the ceramic samples were immersed in 5% gelatin solution and gelatin coatings were formed on the inter-surface of their pores. It was found that the mean compressive strength value and the mean elastic modulus value of porous samples coated with gelatin were improved to 5.17+/-0.17 MPa and 0.3 GPa respectively without sacrificing their porosity greatly. Moreover composite samples were not as fragile as sintered ceramics. The results indicated that the gelatin coatings on the inter-surface of pores reinforced porous bioceramics effectively.