SURFACE TAILORING OF 3D PRINTED BIOMEDICAL ARCHITECTURES

Biomedical Polymers are a group of polymers which are used in the human body, in direct contact with its organs, tissues and fluids. The use of these polymers in clinical disciplines poses unique and extremely severe requirements, where chemical, physical and biological issues are inherently interrelated. With 3D printing techniques, controllable geometry, size, porosity and mechanical properties of the implant are achieved. Coating the printed structure provides a variety of features that cannot be obtained by the printing technique alone, such as rendering the printed structure biocompatible, among others.

Objectives of the project:

* 3D printing of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene structures using an FDM printer

* Dip Coating of the printed structures Surface

* analysis of the coated structures

Based on the relevant digital information a construct mimicking bone made of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene was 3D printed using an FDM printer. The printed structure was immersed in a 100 ml solution containing 2.5g polyacrylic acid, 0.5g of a yellow dye added for visualization purposes and methanol, to improve the coating process. Initially other solvent systems were investigated, but they proved to affect the 3D printed construct, distorting it and detrimentally altering its internal architecture. Finally, methanol was chosen as the solvent to be used during the coating process. The coated structure was then cut in the middle and the presence of the polyacrylic acid coating was determined by SEM and XPS, throughout the bulk of the 3D porous construct.

SEM studies revealed a uniform polyacrylic acid coating with an average thickness of 37microns. Moreover, the attachment between the printed structure and the surface was shown to be strong and stable by visual inspection.