Speaker
Mr
Luc Nimeskern
(ETH Zurich)
Description
Bacterial-derived nano-cellulose (NC) is a novel material with promising biomedical applications. We focus on its potential as a non-biodegradable scaffold for cartilage tissue-engineering (TE). NC is composed of a mesh of cellulose nano-fibrils. For TE it is important to control porosity and interconnectivity to facilitate cell migration. The aim of this study was to identify a 3D imaging protocol for quantifying pore size and interconnectivity.
Samples were quenched in LN2 and freeze-dried. Phase-contrast was performed at the TOMCAT beamline with a modified Bronnikov algorithm (MBA) at 10 keV with a 4x (1.85 µm, 3.7 x 3.7 mm2) and 20x objective (0.37 µm, 0.75 x 0.75 mm2). Average pore size of macropores (Ø125 µm) and micropores (<Ø5 µm) were identified with the 4x and 20x objective, respectively.
Since dry NC behaves as a pure phase object (no absorption), MBA is an ideal method. In this work, NC can be easily segmented, and pore size can be obtained by distance transformation. Therefore phase-contrast X-ray tomography with MBA is a promising 3D imaging protocol for characterization of the porosity of NC.
Please specify poster or talk
talk
Please specify the session
Imaging
Primary authors
Dr
Kathryn Stok
(ETH Zurich)
Mr
Luc Nimeskern
(ETH Zurich)
Dr
Philipp Schneider
(ETH Zurich)
Prof.
Ralph Müller
(ETH Zurich)
Co-authors
Mr
Hector Martinez
(Chalmers University of Technology)
Prof.
Paul Gatenholm
(Chalmers University of Technology)
