Journal
BIOENGINEERING-BASEL
Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering7020030
Keywords
bioprinting; cellulose; hydrogel; physical cross-linking
Funding
- Summer Research Scholarship program [2019-27]
- New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour Fund
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In recent years, 3D printing has enabled the fabrication of complex designs, with low-cost customization and an ever-increasing range of materials. Yet, these abilities have also created an enormous challenge in optimizing a large number of process parameters, especially in the 3D printing of swellable, non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable materials, so-called bio-ink materials. In this work, a cellulose gel, made out of aqueous solutions of cellulose, sodium hydroxide and urea, was used to demonstrate the formation of a shear thinning bio-ink material necessary for an extrusion-based 3D printing. After analysing the shear thinning behaviour of the cellulose gel by rheometry a Design of Experiments (DoE) was applied to optimize the 3D bioprinter settings for printing the cellulose gel. The optimum print settings were then used to print a human ear shape, without a need for support material. The results clearly indicate that the found settings allow the printing of more complex parts with high-fidelity. This confirms the capability of the applied method to 3D print a newly developed bio-ink material.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available