A Tuneable, Photocurable, Poly(Caprolactone)-Based Resin for Tissue Engineering—Synthesis, Characterisation and Use in Stereolithography

Abstract

Stereolithography is a useful additive manufacturing technique for the production of scaffolds for tissue engineering. Here we present a tuneable, easy-to-manufacture, photocurable resin for use in stereolithography, based on the widely used biomaterial, poly(caprolactone) (PCL). PCL triol was methacrylated to varying degrees and mixed with photoinitiator to produce a photocurable prepolymer resin, which cured under UV light to produce a cytocompatible material. This study demonstrates that poly(caprolactone) methacrylate (PCLMA) can be produced with a range of mechanical properties and degradation rates. By increasing the degree of methacrylation (DM) of the prepolymer, the Young’s modulus of the crosslinked PCLMA could be varied from 0.12–3.51 MPa. The accelerated degradation rate was also reduced from complete degradation in 17 days to non-significant degradation in 21 days. The additive manufacturing capabilities of the resin were demonstrated by the production of a variety of different 3D structures using micro-stereolithography. Here, β-carotene was used as a novel, cytocompatible photoabsorber and enabled the production of complex geometries by giving control over cure depth. The PCLMA presented here offers an attractive, tuneable biomaterial for the production of tissue engineering scaffolds for a wide range of applications.

3D-Printed Oral Dosage Forms: Mechanical Properties, Computational Approaches and Applications

“…In some cases, post-curing with a UV oven can be used to increase the mechanical strength of the object [ 54 ]. In the medical field, stereolithographic 3D printing is mainly used in tissue engineering [ 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ] and in the fabrication of implantable devices [ 59 , 60 ]. However, applications in the pharmaceutical field are still limited.…”

3D Printed Punctal Plugs for Controlled Ocular Drug Delivery

“…In the photopolymer solutions, β-carotene was incorporated as a photo absorber due to its absorbance in the visible light range (400–500 nm). Unlike commonly used photo absorbers, such as Sudan I, which have been reported to be genotoxic and carcinogenic [ 70 ], β-carotene is a natural pigment found in plants and fruits and acts as an antioxidant, and so it represents a suitable choice as a biocompatible photo absorber [ 71 , 72 ].…”

3D Printing Polymer-based Bolus Used for Radiotherapy

“…Up to now, the printable materials suitable for DLP-based photocuring printing are mainly photosensitive resins, which have the basic characteristic of photocurability[ 86 ]. Photosensitive resins are a class of relatively mature photocurable prepolymers with low molecular weights, which mainly include esterified acrylate epoxy resin, unsaturated polyester, PU, and polymercaptan/polyene photocurable resin systems[ 87 ]. Although the photo-resins (Young modulus, ~GPa) have been widely used in the manufacturing industry, they are not suitable for constructing bolus by DLP-based printing due to their higher hardness compared to patients’ skin tissues (~KPa).…”