3D printed bionic nanodevices

Abstract

Summary The ability to three-dimensionally interweave biological and functional materials could enable the creation of bionic devices possessing unique and compelling geometries, properties, and functionalities. Indeed, interfacing high performance active devices with biology could impact a variety of fields, including regenerative bioelectronic medicines, smart prosthetics, medical robotics, and human-machine interfaces. Biology, from the molecular scale of DNA and proteins, to the macroscopic scale of tissues and organs, is three-dimensional, often soft and stretchable, and temperature sensitive. This renders most biological platforms incompatible with the fabrication and materials processing methods that have been developed and optimized for functional electronics, which are typically planar, rigid and brittle. A number of strategies have been developed to overcome these dichotomies. One particularly novel approach is the use of extrusion-based multi-material 3D printing, which is an additive manufacturing technology that offers a freeform fabrication strategy. This approach addresses the dichotomies presented above by (1) using 3D printing and imaging for customized, hierarchical, and interwoven device architectures; (2) employing nanotechnology as an enabling route for introducing high performance materials, with the potential for exhibiting properties not found in the bulk; and (3) 3D printing a range of soft and nanoscale materials to enable the integration of a diverse palette of high quality functional nanomaterials with biology. Further, 3D printing is a multi-scale platform, allowing for the incorporation of functional nanoscale inks, the printing of microscale features, and ultimately the creation of macroscale devices. This blending of 3D printing, novel nanomaterial properties, and ‘living’ platforms may enable next-generation bionic systems. In this review, we highlight this synergistic integration of the unique properties of nanomaterials with the versatility of extrusion-based 3D printing technologies to interweave nanomaterials and fabricate novel bionic devices.

Thermally Assisted Electrohydrodynamic Jet High‐Resolution Printing of High‐Molecular Weight Biopolymer 3D Structures

“…Among the biomaterials, the high‐molecular weight biopolymers have the advantages of high biological compatibility, flexible control of molecule, and high function mimicking of organs. In addition, they can be customized by modifying components and polymerization parameters to obtain unique properties including high tensile strength and high material degradation rate . Hence, high‐molecular weight biopolymers are now receiving increased attention because of their wide application prospects in environmental and clinical medicine .…”

Biomimetic approaches toward smart bio-hybrid systems

“…Although impressive advances have been achieved in fabrication of 3D biomaterials scaffolds using the 3D printing techniques [26, 27], their utilities in fabrication of 3D electronics only gained attention recently [28, 29]. Using multi-component 3D printing technique, Parker group integrated strain sensors, which were equipped with electrical readouts in cardiac organ-on-a-chip system for non-invasive and long-term recording of tissue contractile stresses inside cell incubator environment (Fig.…”

Multifaceted polymeric materials in three‐dimensional processing (3DP) technologies: Current progress and prospects

“…Three‐dimensional printing is a low‐cost, office‐friendly, easy to‐use, and affordable, powder‐based rapid prototyping process . It has the capability to create unique architectures, which seems impossible compared with conventional molding or subtractive manufacturing techniques . Three‐dimensional printing technique also gives a unique opportunity to control the material composition and various properties such as electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, reflectivity, magnetic properties, and hardness at various places of the product to fabricate functionally graded materials or composites .…”

“…Different classes of products and materials including ceramics, metals, biomaterials, fibers, and polymers such as elastomers and gels can be fabricated based on the versatility of 3DP technique as shown in Figure .…”