Generation of Controlled Micrometric Fibers inside Printed Scaffolds Using Standard FDM 3D Printers

New additive manufacturing techniques, such as melting electro-writing (MEW) or nearfield electrospinning (NFES), are now used to include microfibers inside 3D printed scaffolds as FDM printers present a limited resolution in the XY axis, not making it easy to go under 100 m without dealing with noz...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Barrio Cortés, Elisa del, Matutano Molina, Clara, Rodríguez-Lorenzo, Luis M., Cubo-Mateo, Nieves
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/285973
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/285973
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:3D printing
microfibers
Scaffolds
tissue engineering
polycaprolactone
Printing parameters
Algorithms
http://metadata.un.org/sdg/3
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Descripción
Sumario:New additive manufacturing techniques, such as melting electro-writing (MEW) or nearfield electrospinning (NFES), are now used to include microfibers inside 3D printed scaffolds as FDM printers present a limited resolution in the XY axis, not making it easy to go under 100 m without dealing with nozzle troubles. This work studies the possibility of creating reproducible microscopic internal fibers inside scaffolds printed by standard 3D printing. For this purpose, novel algorithms generating deposition routines (G-code) based on primitive geometrical figures were created by python scripts, modifying basic deposition conditions such as temperature, speed, or material flow. To evaluate the influence of these printing conditions on the creation of internal patterns at the microscopic level, an optical analysis of the printed scaffolds was carried out using a digital microscope and subsequent image analysis with ImageJ software. To conclude, the formation of heterogeneously shaped microfilaments (48 12 m, mean S.D.) was achieved in a standard FDM 3D Printer with the strategies developed in this work, and it was found that the optimum conditions for obtaining such microfibers were high speeds and a reduced extrusion multiplier.