Fabrication of porous titanium scaffolds by stack sintering of microporous titanium spheres produced with centrifugal granulation technology

Microporosity plays a key role in bioactivity and osteoinductivity of a biomaterial scaffold. A simple new approach to fabricating load-bearing porous titanium (Ti) scaffolds with uniform porous structure, highly controllable pore size and excellent biocompatibility was developed in the present study. This method was based on stack sintering of microporous Ti spheres produced with centrifugal granulation of commercial Ti powders. Macropores (180.0–341.8 μm) and micropores (6.1–11.8 μm) of the scaffolds were dependent on the sizes of the Ti spheres and the Ti powders, respectively. The compressive strength of the scaffolds (83.4–108.9 MPa) was high enough for the repair of load-bearing bone defects. Besides, the abundant micropores occurred on the rough and convex surface of the Ti spheres in the scaffolds were more favorable for adsorption of serum proteins, and thus promoted the growth of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).