ABSTRACT
I. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 111
II. Development of the Solvent-Casting and Particulate-Leaching Procedure ................... 112
III. Scaffold Manufacturing ................................................................................................... 113
A. Salt and Polymer Preparation .................................................................................. 113
B. Salt and Polymer Mixing ........................................................................................ 115
C. Polymer/Salt Construct Drying ............................................................................... 116
D. Construct Modifications .......................................................................................... 116
E. Porogen Leaching .................................................................................................... 116
F. Scaffold Drying and Shaping .................................................................................. 117
IV. Improvements in Scaffold Preparation and Processing .................................................. 117
A. Mechanical Stability ................................................................................................ 118
B. Pore Interconnectivity ............................................................................................. 119
C. Scaffold Bioactivity ................................................................................................. 121
V. Directions for Future Research ....................................................................................... 122
VI. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 122
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ 123
References .................................................................................................................................... 123
Despite recent progress and advances in processing techniques for tissue engineering scaffolds,
further improvements are still necessary for laboratory processing of polymers into porous cell
carriers with controllable porosity, pore size, outer shape, and polymer crystallinity. For example,
the machinery to produce woven scaffolds for cell culture experiments in tissue engineering is often
unavailable and too expensive for many academic research labs or smaller research facilities. In
addition, the variety of polymers capable of achieving application tailored characteristics and
specific properties are greatly limited.
