Medical applications Laboratory tests showed how the 3D printed material molds and sticks to organs such as this porcine heart. (Courtesy: Casey Cass/CU Boulder)
Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Hydrogels, Polymer Science
A new method for 3D printing, described in Science, makes inroads into hydrogel-based adhesives for use in medicine.
3D printers, which deposit individual layers of a variety of materials, enable researchers to create complex shapes and structures. Medical applications often require strong and stretchable biomaterials that also stick to moving tissues, such as the beating human heart or tough cartilage covering the surfaces of bones at a joint.
Many researchers are pursuing 3D-printed tissues, organs and implants created using biomaterials called hydrogels, which are made from networks of crosslinked polymer chains. While significant progress has been made in the field of fabricated hydrogels, traditional 3D printed hydrogels may break when stretched or crack under pressure. Others are too stiff to sculpt around deformable tissues.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), realized that they could incorporate intertwined chains of molecules to make 3D printed hydrogels stronger and more elastic – and possibly even allow them to stick to wet tissue. The method, known as CLEAR, sets an object’s shape using spatial light illumination (photopolymerization) while a complementary redox reaction (dark polymerization) gradually yields a high concentration of entangled polymer chains.
3D printing creates strong, stretchy hydrogels that stick to tissue, Catherine Steffel, Physics World
Comments