Production of novel ceramic porous surfaces tailored for bone tissue engineering

Moderate toughness and poor biological features of ceramics may hinder their application as modern bio-active implants. The paper presents a new, cost-effective, environmentally friendly and simple production method of open-cell calcium phosphate (CP) ceramic foams, by employing powders’ compaction, dissolution and sintering, aiming at producing highly bio-active 3D surface scaffolds. The process parameters were properly adjusted to optimize the quality and structure of CP foams, and samples with various porosity (60–75 vol%) and pore size (0.28–0.50 mm) were fabricated, characterized and mechanically tested. Cell viability, adhesion and proliferation investigations revealed an excellent potential for application in bone tissue engineering.