Indirect Solid Freeform Fabrication of an Initiator‐Free Photocrosslinkable Hydrogel Precursor for the Creation of Porous Scaffolds

Abstract

In the present work, a photopolymerized urethane-based poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogel is applied as a porous scaffold material using indirect solid freeform fabrication (SFF). This approach combines the benefits of SFF with a large freedom in material selection and applicable concentration ranges. A sacrificial 3D poly(ε-caprolactone) structure is generated using fused deposition modeling and used as template to produce hydrogel scaffolds. By changing the template plotting parameters, the scaffold channel sizes vary from 280 to 360 μm, and the strut diameters from 340 to 400 μm. This enables the production of scaffolds with tunable mechanical properties, characterized by an average hardness ranging from 9 to 43 N and from 1 to 6 N for dry and hydrated scaffolds, respectively. Experiments using mouse calvaria preosteoblasts indicate that a gelatin methacrylamide coating of the scaffolds results in an increased cell adhesion and proliferation with improved cell morphology.

(Photo-)crosslinkable gelatin derivatives for biofabrication applications

“…Furthermore, the introduction of methacrylamides to gelatin (gel-MA) involves a straightforward single step reaction resulting in a plethora of applications. (Figure 1: A) [8,9,25,28,33,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75]. Besides this success, other derivatives have also been reported to further tune/improve the material properties.…”

“…Indirect approaches are either applied to combine the mechanical properties of a stiff polymer with the desirable cell interactivity of gelatin or to introduce complex 3D structures into materials which cannot be processed through a direct AM method [8,28,31,70,165]. Van Hoorick et al were able to produce self-supporting, low density (i.e.…”

Gelatin‐polysaccharide composite scaffolds for 3D cell culture and tissue engineering: Towards natural therapeutics

“…These engineered scaffolds promoted the hepatocyte cell function, characterized by large colony formation in the predefined chambers within 1 week, which secreted albumin and urea more effectively than highly porous materials . These scaffolds were prepared through the combination of solid freeform fabrication (SFF), microreplication, and freeze‐drying approaches . The fabrication process is described in Figure a.…”

Activated Carbon Containing PEG‐Based Hydrogels as Novel Candidate Dressings for the Treatment of Malodorous Wounds

“…The degree of substitution (DS) of AlgMOD and the acrylate content of the AUP precursors were determined through 1 H NMR spectroscopy as described earlier. [30,42] In brief, spectra of the AUP precursors were recorded in presence of a NMR standard DMT for calculation of the acrylate amount. Both precursors and DMT were weighed using an analytical balance and dissolved together in The materials were freeze-dried in a Christ freeze-dryer alpha 2-4 LSC at −85 °C and 0.37 mbar.…”

“…[20,22] In this respect, acrylate-endcapped urethane-based polymer precursors (AUPs) [28] are very interesting due to their ability to cross-link in solid state upon UV irradiation, especially for the production of photo-cross-linkable fiber mats by electrospinning. [28,29] In addition, they exhibit a tunable mechanical strength (up to 0.6 MPa in swollen state for precursors crosslinked in a 30% w/w aqueous solution) [30] and biocompatibility. [29] These hydrogel precursors can be based on different polymer backbones, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) being one example only.…”