Characterization of the flow behavior of alginate/hydroxyapatite mixtures for tissue scaffold fabrication.

Mixtures of alginate and hydroxyapatite (HA) are promising materials for biomedical applications such as the fabrication of tissue scaffolds. In this paper, the flow behavior of alginate/HA mixtures was investigated and determined to be dependent on the concentration of both alginate and HA, and temperature. The relationships were mathematically established and verified with experimental results. As applied to the tissue scaffold fabrication, the flow rate of the biomaterial solution was predicted from the established flow behavior and verified by experiments. On this basis, the moving speed of the needle was determined and used in the tissue scaffold fabrication. The results obtained show that the knowledge of the flow behavior is essential to the fabrication of tissue scaffolds with an interconnected microstructure.