Aligned porous alumina ceramics with high compressive strengths for bone tissue engineering

We fabricated highly aligned porous alumina ceramics with interconnection sizes of >50 μm by the unidirectional freeze casting of ceramic/camphene slurries at 3 °C and subsequent treatment at 35 °C for 24 h, followed by sintering at 1600 °C for 3 h. As the initial alumina content employed in the slurry was increased from 10 to 25 vol.% and the porosity was linearly decreased from 82 to 59%, while the compressive strength was remarkably improved from 11 to 95 MPa.