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The use of 3D printing technologies is growing widely, including the possibility of design phantoms for imaging and dosimetry. For that, high attenuation tissues such as cortical bone, dentin and enamel need to be mimicked to accurately produce 3D printed phantoms, especially for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) printing technology.  A Radiopaque FFF filament commercially available had been hard to be found; and this study aims to report, step-by-step, the development of a radiopaque FFF filament. A combination of radiopaque substances (Barium Sulfate - BaSO4 and Calcium Carbonate - CaCO3) was selected using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) XCOM tool theoretical data and added as filler in an Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) matrix. The filament was homogenized and gone under first characterizations by analyzing its density, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Computed Tomography (CT) and micro-CT (µCT) scans. Three filaments were produced with different Hounsfield Units (HU) equivalences: XCT-A (1607HU), XCT-B (1965HU) and XCT-C (2624HU) with respective densities of 1.166(6) g/cm³, 1.211(2) g/cm³ and 1.271(3) g/cm³. With these values, high attenuation tissues, such as bones, dentine and enamel, can now be mimicked with FFF 3D printing technology, at a low cost of production.

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3D printing techniques and materials have become widely available in the last couple of decades and remains a hot topic of study as new materials can lead to new applications. This study aims to evaluate the attenuation behaviour of GMASS over photon beams ranging from 29.7 up to 661.7keV, comparing with pure ABS and using theoretical data of pure lead as reference. It was used the transmission method to obtain experimental attenuation coefficients to all materials and theoretical data. HVL and TVL calculations were also performed. Results show that ABS+W has higher attenuation than ABS+Bi and pure ABS. Using the lead theoretical reference data it can be concluded that although ABS+Bi and ABS+W attenuates less than pure lead, the 3D printing filaments can be used to create shielding tolls depending on radiation energy and application.

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