Effects of poly (ε-caprolactone) coating on the properties of three-dimensional printed porous structures

Abstract

Powder-based inkjet three-dimensional printing (3DP) to fabricate pre-designed 3D structures has drawn increasing attention. However there are intrinsic limitations associated with 3DP technology due to the weak bonding within the printed structure, which significantly compromises its mechanical integrity. In this study, calcium sulphate ceramic structures demonstrating a porous architecture were manufactured using 3DP technology and subsequently post-processed with a poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) coating. PCL concentration, immersion time, and number of coating layers were the principal parameters investigated and improvement in compressive properties was the measure of success. Interparticle spacing within the 3DP structures were successfully filled with PCL material. Consequently the compressive properties, wettability, morphology, and in vitro resorption behaviour of 3DP components were significantly augmented. The average compressive strength, Young's modulus, and toughness increased 217%, 250%, and 315%, following PCL coating. Addition of a PCL surface coating provided long-term structural support to the host ceramic material, extending the resorption period from less than 7 days to a minimum of 56 days. This study has demonstrated that application of a PCL coating onto a ceramic 3DP structure was a highly effective approach to addressing some of the limitations of 3DP manufacturing and allows this advanced technology to be potentially used in a wider range of applications.

An assessment of thermosetting infiltrate in powder-based composites made by additive manufacturing

“…Similar behaviours for samples infiltrated with cyanoacrylate have been reported in Impens and Urbanic 16 and Zhou et al. 31 Figure 3 shows the typical stress–strain curves for the composites. Higher toughness is evidenced for the EP-infiltrated composite.…”

“…Zhou et al. 31 achieved higher compressive strength (∼217%) using the poly ɛ-caprolactone coating technique of 3D-printed structures. The ultimate strain of the infiltrated epoxy composites (EP) was slightly higher than the PC (Table 6).…”

AM of three‐dimensional spongy microstructures for a piezoelectric sprayer

“…Further analysis of dimensional error and surface roughness demonstrates that the minimal error and roughness for FDM‐based AM was <5% with the anisotropic feature, strongly depending on the 3D printing orientation. Those significant results would benefit the fundamental design and manufacturing of integrated devices using 3D printing in the microfluidic application in the future [38, 39].…”

Composite Membranes of Poly(ε-caprolactone) with Bisphosphonate-Loaded Bioactive Glasses for Potential Bone Tissue Engineering Applications

“…In our previous work, we demonstrated that the incorporation of 0.5, 1 and 2.5 wt% of nanosized mesoporous BGs in a PCL matrix via the in-situ ring opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone, resulted in a biocompatible PCL composite material with superior mechanical properties, accelerated biodegradation rate and bioactivity [63]. In this context, PCL/BG composites and nanocomposites are promising materials for a wide range of applications such as coatings for metallic or ceramic scaffolds for bone regeneration [64,65,66], as a solution for their high corrosion rates or low bioactivity, as root canal filling materials, or as bone scaffolds [15,63,67,68,69,70].…”