Bacterial cellulose-based aerogels with hydroxyapatite and calcium oxide for tissue repair

• Grant number: 23/06071-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2023
• End date: August 22, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering - Industrial Operations and Equipment for Chemical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Liliane Maria Ferrareso Lona
• Grantee: Guilherme Domingos Garcia
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Química (FEQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/04008-0 - Aerogels based on bacterial cellulose with hydroxyapatite and calcium oxide for tissue repair, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Tissue engineering for bone regeneration is crucial to improve people's health and quality of life. However, creating biomaterials for this purpose is still a significant challenge due to the complexity of their manufacture, high costs, and difficultiesin large-scale production. Fortunately, biofabrication using bacterial cellulose (BC) and its modification through the impregnation of suspended particles emerge as a promising and advantageous technique for scaffold production due to its simplicity, low cost, and scalability. This project aims to develop a new biomaterial for bone regeneration through the in vitro preparation and evaluation of BC hydrogels, which will be dried to form aerogels, allowing their use as scaffolds. The process begins with preparing BC hydrogels, followed by the phosphorylation of their surface and the impregnation of hydroxyapatite (HAP) and calcium oxide (CaO) particles. Finally, The resulting hidrogels will be lyophilized to form the aerogel and subjected to a series of analyses, including flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS), Fourier transform infrared transmission spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), as well as dynamic-mechanical (DMA), thermogravimetric (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses, to determine the thermal and mechanical properties of the aerogels and investigate the effect of HAp and CaO incorporation in BC.