Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan-Collagen-Hydroxyapatite Membranes as Cell Scaffold for Tissue Engineering Applications

Regenerative medicine involves the principles of engineering and health sciences manufacturing biological substitutes that improve or replace organs or tissues. There are materials that have been widely used for the development of cell scaffolds, Chitosan is a polysaccharide well-known for its biocompatibility; collagen is a very abundant protein and of great importance in connective and bone tissue. Finally, hydroxyapatite is a ceramic material with high biocompatibility. These were the components of the membranes developed in this work. On the other hand, at a global level, there is great concern about the waste that agriculture and the food industry generate, since its waste contaminates soil water and produces emissions that promote climate change. The egg is a food produced and consumed throughout the world, therefore a large amount of eggshell waste is generated. In this work, the synthesis of hydroxyapatite from eggshells was carried out using phosphoric acid. With the synthesized hydroxyapatite and the other mentioned materials, membranes were obtained that were characterized and their levels of cytotoxicity were evaluated using NIH/3T3 fibroblast cell line. All the evaluated membranes showed a high cell adhesion, results suggest that the use of eggshell agricultural waste to synthesize hydroxyapatite is possible for the development of membranes that can become important biomaterials for the biomedical area.