Viscoelastic behavior of calcium phosphate packed bacterial cellulose -polyvinylpyrrolidone based hydrogel scaffolds at human fever temperature

Abstract

Calcium phosphate (CaP) packed bacterial cellulose (BC) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) based hydrogel scaffolds (BC-PVPCaP) are being reported here considering its possible application in bone restoration. The primary focus of this work is to analyze the viscoelastic behavior of 'BC-PVP-CaP' hydrogel scaffolds at human fever temperature condition (39°C) in swelled state. In BC-PVP scaffolds, CaP [in the form of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) and hydroxyapatite (HA) is present as filler in different concentrations (i.e. β-TCP/HA_20:80, β-TCP/HA_40:60, β-TCP/HA_50:50). The BC-PVP scaffold (without CaP) was marked as a control set for the evaluation of viscoelasticity of scaffolds. The BC-PVP-CaP_50:50 hydrogel scaffold showed the highest degree of swelling at 39°C among the other BC-PVP-CaP scaffolds. However, the other hydrogel scaffolds were also showed notable viscoelasticity at 39°C. Experimental results confirmed that the CaP filled BC-PVP hydrogel scaffolds (BC-PVP-CaP_20:80, BCPVP- CaP_40:60, BC-PVP-CaP_50:50) exhibit a promising viscoelastic behavior at human fever temperature condition (39°C), can be endorsed for its potential application in bone repairing /bone restoration. © 2020 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.