Solvent-Free Digital Light 3D Printing using Biodegradable Polymeric Photoinitiators

Abstract

<p>Vat photopolymerization 3D printing provides new</p><p>opportunities for the fabrication of tissue scaffolds and medical</p><p>devices. However, it usually requires the use of organic solvents or</p><p>diluents to dissolve the solid photoinitators, making this process</p><p>environmentally unfriendly, and not optimal for biomedical</p><p>applications. Here, we report biodegradable liquid polymeric</p><p>photoinitiators for solvent-free 3D printing of biodegradable polymeric</p><p>materials by digital light processing. These photoinitiators enable</p><p>systematic investigation of structure-property relationship of 3D</p><p>printing polymeric materials without the interference from the reactive</p><p>diluents and offer new perspectives for the solvent-free 3D additive</p><p>manufacturing of bioresorbable medical implants as well as other</p><p>functional devices.</p>

Digital Light 3D Printing of Biodegradable Elastomers for Personalized Devices

“…[3] However, the fabrication of bioresorbable and elastic medical devices by DLP is challenging due to the difficulty in 3D printing of biodegradable elastomers with desired mechanical properties. [4][5][6] To tackle this issue, we recently reported a novel 'dual-polymer' resin with tunable crosslinking ability, which enabled digital light printing of biodegradable elastomers with silicone-like mechanical performance. [7] To obtain biodegradable photopolymers in a liquid state at ambient temperature suitable for DLP printing, we synthesized a series of random copolymers from d,l-lactide (DLLA) and ε-caprolactone (CL) with four-arm structure and varied molecular weight (1200 to 15,000 g mol −1 ), followed by functionalization with methacrylate groups.…”