Adopting the principles of collagen biomineralization for intrafibrillar infiltration of yttria-stabilized zirconia into three-dimensional collagen scaffolds.

In this paper, we report a process for generating collagen-yttria-stabilized amorphous zirconia hybrid scaffolds by introducing acetylacetone-inhibited zirconia precursor nanodroplets into a poly(allylamine)-coated collagen matrix. This polyelectrolyte coating triggers intrafibrillar condensation of the precursors into amorphous zirconia, which is subsequently transformed into tetragonal yttria-stabilized zirconia after calcination. Our findings represent a new paradigm in the synthesis of non-naturally occurring collagen-based hybrid scaffolds under alcoholic mineralizing conditions.