A new photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone‐based ink for three‐dimensional inkjet printing

Abstract

A new type of photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone (PCL) based ink that is suitable for three-dimensional (3D) inkjet printing has been developed. Photocrosslinkable Polycaprolactone dimethylacrylate (PCLDMA) was synthesized and mixed with poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) to prepare an ink with a suitable viscosity for inkjet printing. The ink performance under different printing environments, initiator concentrations, and post processes was studied. This showed that a nitrogen atmosphere during printing was beneficial for curing and material property optimization, as well as improving the quality of structures produced. A simple structure, built in the z-direction, demonstrated the potential for this material for the production of 3D printed objects. Cell tests were carried out to investigate the biocompatibility of the developed ink. © 2016 The Authors Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 105B: 1645-1657, 2017.

3D printing of tablets using inkjet with UV photoinitiation

“…Curing of the material was carried out during printing with a LED UV lamp (365nm, 600 mW cm -2 , Printed Electronics Limited, Tamworth, UK) bolted directly to the printhead mount and in-line with the print path at print cartridge height. He et al have previously described this method to print polycaprolactone dimethacylate based inks (He et al, 2016). This curing unit follows the print and irradiates the deposited material during each print pass and at the same print speed.…”

“…Three-dimensional (3D) objects can be generated by sequentially printing / depositing successive two-dimensional (2D) images over multiple layers. However, materials availability for inkjet printing are limited, and efforts to broaden the materials range for biotechnology applications is an active area of AM research (Begines et al, 2016;He et al, 2016;Hart et al 2016;Saunders and Derby, 2014;Gudapati et al, 2016). In addition to inkjet 3D printing, other 3D printing technologies have shown significant progress (Alhnan et al, 2016;Goyanes et al, 2015;Khaled et al, 2015aKhaled et al, , 2015bOkwuosa et al, 2016;Sadia et al, 2016).…”

A Novel Approach to Design Lesion-Specific Stents for Minimum Recoil

“…Whilst these could be manufactured using, for example, laser cutting methods common for stent production, a technology for the future is additive manufacturing (AM). Production and modification of metallic stents via AM has already been demonstrated and printable polymeric biomaterials for drug release and implants are becoming more widely available [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]. The workflow presented here has potential benefit not only for the personalised treatment of CVD; the scalability and freedom of design based AM offers a benefit for other intravascular applications.…”

Multifaceted polymeric materials in three‐dimensional processing (3DP) technologies: Current progress and prospects

“…Photopolymer inkjet printing or polyjet printing (multijet modeling and multijet printing) employs the same principle as SLS, but the traditional inkjet printer head deposits a photocurable liquid resin on the printing platform in the predetermined design, before immediate exposure to a UV light to cure the liquid layer. Inkjet printing allows the production of 2D and 3D structures as well as co‐deposition of more than 1 material due to the possibility of multiple deposition heads . There are 3 types of inkjet‐based technologies, namely, drop‐on‐demand inkjet printing and continuous inkjet printing and electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing, and they are characterized by the presence of a printer head (ie, thermal or piezoelectric) and the need to control both drop formation velocity and fluid viscosity .…”

“…Inkjet printing allows the production of 2D and 3D structures as well as co-deposition of more than 1 material due to the possibility of multiple deposition heads. 77 There are 3 types of inkjet-based technologies, namely, drop-on-demand inkjet printing and continuous inkjet printing and electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing, and they are characterized by the presence of a printer head (ie, thermal or piezoelectric) and the need to control both drop formation velocity and fluid viscosity. 78 Continuous inkjet printing involves the ejection of a continuous stream of liquid through an orifice (nozzle), which then breaks up under surface tension forces into a stream of drops (~100 μm in diameter), while in drop-on-demand printing, the liquid is ejected from the printhead only when a drop (~10-50 μm in diameter) is required, the production of which occurs rapidly in response to a trigger sign.…”