Porous gelatin hydrogels by gas-in-liquid foam templating

Abstract

In the present work, porous gelatin scaffolds were prepared by insufflating an inert gas (argon) inside a concentrated solution of gelatin in the presence of a suitable polymeric surfactant in association with sodium dodecyl sulfate. The implementation of such an approach involved the design and manufacturing of a specially dedicated reactor. Foams were prepared at a temperature of 50 °C and then let gel at 4 °C. After purification, they were auto-cross-linked with EDC and freeze-dried. The scaffolds synthesised with this technique present a morphology characterised by pores of spherical symmetry highly interconnected by a plurality of interconnections and, as a consequence, are particularly suited for cell culturing. The dosage of the volume of the insufflated gas permits to modulate the scaffold pore and interconnect dimensions. In this way matrices characterised by void and interconnect average diameters ranging from 250 to 360 μm and from 80 to 150 μm, respectively, can be successfully obtained.