3D Bioplotter Research Papers

3D printing technologies allow control over the alignment of building blocks in synthetic materials, but compositional changes often require complex multimaterial printing steps. Here, 3D printable materials showing locally tunable mechanical properties are produced in a single printing step of Direct Ink Writing. These new inks consist of a polymer matrix bearing biocompatible photoreactive cinnamate derivatives and up to 30 wt% of anisotropic cellulose nanocrystals. The printed materials are mechanically versatile and can undergo further crosslinking upon illumination. When illuminating the material and controlling the irradiation doses, the Young’s moduli can be adjusted between 15 and 75 MPa. Moreover, spatially…

We report on a procedure for the preparation, printing and curing of antibacterial poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) nanocellulose-reinforced hydrogels. These composites present a highly anisotropic microstructure which allows to control and modulate the resulting mechanical properties. The incorporation of such nanoparticles enables us to modify both the strength and the humidity-dependent swelling direction of printed parts, offering a fourth-dimensional property to the resulting composite. Antibacterial properties of the hydrogels were obtained by incorporating the functionalized peptide ε-polylysine, modified with the addition of a methacrylate group to ensure UV-immobilization. We highlight the relevance of well-adapted viscoelastic properties of our material for 3D printing by…

Cellulose is an attractive material resource for the fabrication of sustainable functional products, but its processing into structures with complex architecture and high cellulose content remains challenging. Such limitation has prevented cellulose‐based synthetic materials from reaching the level of structural control and mechanical properties observed in their biological counterparts, such as wood and plant tissues. To address this issue, a simple approach is reported to manufacture complex‐shaped cellulose‐based composites, in which the shaping capabilities of 3D printing technologies are combined with a wet densification process that increases the concentration of cellulose in the final printed material. Densification is achieved by…

The alignment of anisotropic particles during ink deposition directly affects the microstructure and properties of materials manufactured by extrusion-based 3D printing. Although particle alignment in diluted suspensions is well described by analytical and numerical models, the dynamics of particle orientation in the highly concentrated inks typically used for printing via direct ink writing (DIW) remains poorly understood. Using cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as model building blocks of increasing technological relevance, we study the dynamics of particle alignment under the shear stresses applied to concentrated inks during DIW. With the help of in situ polarization rheology, we find that the time period…