Bioactive glass sol as a dual function additive for chitosan-alginate hybrid scaffold

Bioactive glass-chitosan-alginate hybrid scaffolds (BG-C-A scaffolds) were fabricated using BG sol as a dual function additive, which behaves as both bioactive inorganic phase to confer the bioactivity and cross-linker to improve the structural stability and mechanical properties. The microstructure, physicochemical and mechanical properties, in vitro bioactivity and cellular biocompatibility of the scaffolds were investigated. The results indicated that BG component was successfully incorporated into the BG-C-A scaffolds through a facile BG sol-immersing method and the original interconnected microstructure could be well preserved. The obtained BG-C-A scaffolds showed improved mechanical properties and structural stability as compared to C-A scaffolds. At the same time, they presented excellent in vitro bioactivity and cellular compatibility. All these results demonstrated that these BG-C-A scaffolds have promising potential for tissue engineering.