Alginates are linear unbranched polysaccharides containing beta-(1-1) linked D-mannuronic acid and alpha-(1-4) linked L-guluronic acid. The alginate hydrogels are produced by mixing the alginate with a proper crosslinking agent. During the gel formation, crosslinks between alginate chains and cationic species are formed, changing the elastic behaviour of the material controlling the volume change phenomena of gels. This research study focuses on a new route to produce three-dimensional patterns (or scaffolds) in alginate hydrogels for tissue engineering applications. This process involves a generation of foams from a network calcium alginate polymer by lyophilisation. Different structures were produced using different alginate compositions. It was observed that the alginate composition determines both the rheological characteristics of the solution and the morphological characteristics of the scaffolds. © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group. 383388Jen, A.C., Wake, M.C., Mikos, A.G., Review: Hydrogels for Cell Immobilization (1996) Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 50, pp. 357-364Bartolo, P.J., Mendes, A., Jardini, A., Bio-manufacturing (2004) Design and Nature: Comparing design in nature with science and engineering, , Edited by C.A. Brebbia, L. Sucharov and P. Pascolo, WIT Press, Southampton, UKBártolo, P.J., State of the art of solid freeform fabrication for soft and hard tissue engineering (2006) Design and nature III: Comparing design in nature with science and engineeringHatakeyama, H., Hatakeyama, T., Interaction between water and hydrophilic polymers (1998) Thermochimica Acta, 308, pp. 3-22He, H., Cao, X., Lee, L.J., Design of a novel hydrogel-based intelligent system for controlled drug release (2004) Journal of Controlled Release, 95, pp. 391-402Lee, J.J., Lee, S.G., Park, J.C., Yang, Y.I., Kim, J.K., (2007) Investigation ob biodegradabale PLGA scaffold with various pore size structure for skin tissue engineering, Current Applied Physics, 7S1, pp. 37-40Leor, J., Aboulafia-Etzion, S., Dar, A., Shapiro, L., Barbash, I., Battler, A., Granot, Y., Cohen, S., (2000) Circulation, Bioengineered cardiac grafts: Anew approach to repair the infarcted myocardium, 102. , 11-56-61Rezende, R.A., Báartolo, P.J., Mendes, A., Maciel Filho, R., Experimental characterisation of the alginate gelification process for rapid prototyping (2007) Chemical Engineering TransactionsShapiro, L., Cohen, S., Novel alginate sponges for cell culture and transplantation (1997) Biomaterials, 18, pp. 583-590Nir, S.G., Cohen, S., Ziskind, A., Three dimensional Porous Alginate Scaffolds Provid a Conducive Enironmentfor Generation of Well Vascularised Embryoid Bodies From Human Embryonic Stem Cells (2004) Biotechnology and bioengineering, 88, pp. 313-320Sung, H.J., Meredith, C., Johnson, C., Galis, Z.S., The effect of scaffold degradation rate on three-dimensional cell growth and angiogenesis (2004) Biomaterials, 25, pp. 5735-5742Trong, M.D., Chung, Y.C., Wend, Y.C., Studies on the degradation behavior of chitosan-g-poly(acrylic acid) copolymers (2000) Tamkang J. Sci. Eng, 5, pp. 235-240Zmora, S., Glicklis, R., Cohen, S., Tailoring the pore architecture in 3-D alginate scaffolds by controlling the freezing regime during fabrication (2002) Biomaterials, 23, pp. 4087-4094