Microstructure and mechanical properties analysis of β -tricalcium phosphate/carbon nanotubes scaffold based on rapid prototyping

β -TCP ceramic scaffolds were fabricated with selective laser sintering (SLS) in this work. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were mixed with porous β -TCP matrix to enhance the mechanical performance of the bone tissue engineering scaffolds. Scaffold reconstruction and microstructure analysis were fulfilled based on micro-computed tomography (Micro-CT) scanning data. Results show that the strength of scaffold mixed with 0.2% CNTs reaches 0.819 MPa which has been improved by 85.7% compared with that without CNTs. Micro-CT analysis shows that the scaffold has a good interconnectivity, and pore size mainly distributes in the two regions of 60–340 µm and 500–620 µm.