Bioactive glass/polymer hybrids are promising materials for biomedical applications
because they combine the bioactivity of these bioceramics with the flexibility of polymers. In
previous work hybrid foams with 80% bioactive glass and 20% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) were
prepared by the sol-gel process for application as scaffold for bone tissue engineering. In this work
it was evaluated the effect of increasing the PVA content of the hybrids on structural characteristics
and mechanical properties of hybrid foams produced by this method. The hybrids were prepared
with inorganic phase composition of 70%SiO2-30%CaO and PVA fractions of 20 to 60% by the
sol-gel method. The structural and mechanical characterization of the obtained foams was done by
FTIR, SEM, Helium Picnometry, and compression tests. To reduce the acidic character of the
hybrids due to the catalysts added, different neutralization solutions were tested. The immersion of
hybrids in a calcium acetate solution was the most adequate neutralization method, avoiding
calcium loss while maintaining pH nearly 7,0 and low PVA loss. The foams presented porosity of
60-85% and pore diameters of 100-500μm with interconnected structure. The pore structure varied
with the polymer content in the hybrid. The compression tests showed that an increase of PVA
fraction in the hybrids improved their mechanical properties.
Evaluation of bioactive glass synthesized by alkali-mediated sol-gel process
