The feasibility of printing polylactic acid–nanohydroxyapatite composites using a low‐cost fused deposition modeling 3D printer

Abstract

The current "gold standard" to treat bone lesions is allografts and autografts, both presenting important disadvantages such as risk of infection and morbidity. Synthetic grafts and scaffolds for bone regeneration represent a promising solution. Fused deposition modeling is a valid tool for developing synthetic bone grafts of complex shapes, which is a key issue. The possibility of building polylactic acid-nanohydroxyapatite (PLA/nanoHA) composites by 3D printing was systematically evaluated. PLA/nanoHA filaments for low-cost 3D printers were produced by a multistep solvent-free procedure and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry, and rheometry. TGA analysis confirmed the presence of the nanoHA amounts used in the composites, equal to 5 and 15 wt %. The glasstransition temperature and degree of crystallinity of PLA are not influenced by presence of nanoHA, which remains substantially amorphous. The morphological analysis and compression testing on printed samples showed that nanoHA was uniformly dispersed within the PLA matrix and improved the PLA mechanical properties without changing the rheological performance. V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 44656.

Miscible blends of biobased poly(lactide) with poly(methyl methacrylate): Effects of chopped glass fiber incorporation

“…Composites made from regrind material can be used by large manufacturers such as automotive OEMs as well as hobbyists for applications such as three‐dimensional printing. Chopped fiber and nanoparticle filled PLA is the one of the most commonly used composite systems for additive manufacturing . The present work should prove valuable as a reference for mechanical properties of biobased polymer/short glass fiber composites.…”

Comparison between calcium carbonate and β‐tricalcium phosphate as additives of 3D printed scaffolds with polylactic acid matrix

“…This modification can be explained by the nucleation effect caused by the presence of the particles (Alemán‐Domínguez et al, ; Drummer et al, ). Changes induces in the crystallinity of the PLA‐based scaffolds alters the degradation rate of the structure (Esposito Corcione et al, ), which is a factor of great importance because the bulk degradation of PLA leads to the formation of acidic by‐products (Abert et al, ; Schiller et al, ). Further investigation is needed to evaluate the effect of the addition of β‐TCP (Hutmacher, ) and especially CaCO 3 into the PLA matrix in order to counteract the pH decrease.…”

“…The melting temperature and the melting enthalpy of each type of sample were calculated using these data. The values of the melting enthalpy were used to calculate the crystallinity of the samples by applying the following equation (Esposito Corcione et al, ): where X c is the degree of crystallinity, ΔH f is the enthalpy of fusion of the sample, ΔH f ° corresponds to the heat of fusion of 100% crystalline PLA, and W PLA is the net weight fraction of the PLA in the sample tested. The value of ΔH f ° used in this study was 93.7 J/g (Garlotta, ).…”

Optimization of mechanical properties of glass‐spheres‐filled polypropylene composites for extrusion‐based additive manufacturing

“…One potential solution to prevent printed parts from shrinking and warping is to incorporate isotropic fillers, such as microspheres . For FFF different nonfibrous filler systems have so far been incorporated into both polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) , but little attention has been devoted to the incorporation of fillers into 3D‐printed PP.…”