While microporous biopolymer matrices are being widely tested as cell culture substrates in hepatic tissue engineering, the microstructural basis for their control of cell differentiation is not well understood. In this paper, we studied the role of void size of collagen foams in directing the induction of liver-specific differentiated morphology and secretory activities of cultured rat hepatoc...

Novel syntactic foams made of starch and ceramic hollow micro-spheres were developed. Foams of four different micro-sphere size groups were manufactured with either preor post-mould gelatinisation process. Compressive failure behaviour and mechanical properties were evaluated. Not much difference in failure behaviour or in mechanical properties between the two processes (preand post-mould gel) ...

Microwave technology is a highly effective approach to fast and uniform heating. This article investigates that the microwave heating as a novel method is used to rapidly foam and actuate biocompatible and biodegradable shape memory crosslinked-polycaprolactone (c-PCL) foams. The optical microscope proves that the resulting c-PCL foams have homogenous pore structure. Mechanical behavior and sha...

A collection of applications of polymer matrix syntactic foams is presented in this article. Syntactic foams are lightweight porous composites that found their early applications in marine structures due to their naturally buoyant behavior and low moisture absorption. Their light weight has been beneficial in weight sensitive aerospace structures. Syntactic foams have pushed the performance bou...

Sawbones© open-cell foams with different porosity grades are being used as synthetic bone-like models for in vitro mechanical and infiltration experiments. However, a comprehensive characterization of these foams is not available and there is a lack of reliable information about them. For this reason two of these foams (Refs. 1522-505 and -507) have been characterized at the micro architectural...

We probe the drainage and imbibition dynamics of foams in which the continuous aqueous phase is a transient gel-like network. To produce these foams, we provide a new method - a PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) solution is first foamed and then a cross-linker, Borax, is added, which binds reversibly to the PVA chains. The resulting foams are ultra-stable-over a month. We find that the typical time for g...

The porous polymer foams act as a template for neotissuegenesis in tissue engineering, and, as a reservoir for cell transplants such as pancreatic islets while simultaneously providing a functional interface with the host body. The fabrication of foams with the controlled shape, size and pore structure is of prime importance in various bioengineering applications. To this end, here we demonstra...

Steel foam offers potential advantages over aluminum foams and other metallic foams. The inherent strength of steel combined with the reduced density of foam presents an attractive material with greater strength and modulus than light alloy foams, greatly reduced density relative to solid steel, and efficient energy absorption. However, thus far there have been few reports describing efforts to...