Development of a Powder Extruder System for Dual-pore Tissue-engineering Scaffold Fabrication

In this study, we developed a powder extruder system that can extrude and deposit powder mixtures to overcome the reported limitations of conventional dual-pore scaffold manufacturing methods. To evaluate the extrusion and deposition capability of the powder extruder system, 3D tissue-engineering scaffolds with dual-pore characteristics were fabricated with a PCL/PEO/NaCl (polycaprolactone/polyethylene oxide/sodium chloride) powder mixture. In addition, to evaluate the fabricated scaffolds, their compressive modulus, morphology, and in-vitro cell activity were assessed. Consequently, it was confirmed that the proposed powder extruder system can fabricate dual-pore scaffolds with well-interconnected pores as well as arbitrary 3D shapes shown by the fabrication of a 3D femur-shape scaffold similar to the femur model. The results of the cell proliferation and Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assays, DNA content analysis and viability assays confirm that the dual-pore scaffold fabricated by the powder extruder system improves cell attachment, proliferation, and viability.