4.5 Article

3D Printing of Gelled and Cross-Linked Cellulose Solutions; an Exploration of Printing Parameters and Gel Behaviour

Journal

BIOENGINEERING-BASEL
Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages -

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering7020030

Keywords

bioprinting; cellulose; hydrogel; physical cross-linking

Funding

  1. Summer Research Scholarship program [2019-27]
  2. New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour Fund

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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.

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