Development of porous guar gum-hydroxyapatite composite scaffolds via freeze-drying method

Abstract This paper intends the development of a composite scaffold by a simple freeze-drying technique where the naturally available guar gum (GG) was reacted with that of hydroxyapatite (HA). During the synthesis, the GG suspension was allowed to react with different concentrations of HA (10–30 wt%) and the formed porous scaffolds are expected to have better control of the scaffold microstructure and can enhance the mechanical characteristics of GG. The morphology of prepared scaffolds was analyzed by using stereo zoom optical microscopy and the mechanical properties (compressive strength) by the universal testing machine. The analysis of results indicated that the concentration of polysaccharide solution plays a dynamic part in controlling the morphological and compressive strength of the scaffold by bringing changes to the pore architecture and total solid content.