Bio-composite scaffolds containing chitosan/nano-hydroxyapatite/nano-copper–zinc for bone tissue engineering

The current study involves fabrication and characterization of bio-composite scaffolds containing chitosan (CS), nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp) and Cu–Zn alloy nanoparticles (nCu–Zn) by freeze drying technique. The fabricated composite scaffolds (CS/nHAp and CS/nHAp/nCu–Zn) were characterized by SEM, EDX, XRD and FT-IR studies. The addition of nCu–Zn in the CS/nHAp scaffolds significantly increased swelling, decreased degradation, increased protein adsorption, and increased antibacterial activity. The CS/nHAp/nCu–Zn scaffolds had no toxicity towards rat osteoprogenitor cells. So the developed CS/nHAp/nCu–Zn scaffolds have advantageous and potential applications over the CS–nHAp scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.