A High-resolution 3D Printable Porous Biomaterial

Abstract

Three-dimension (3D) printing is a novel method to fabricate biomaterials with complex shapes and architectures. A porous biomaterial with 40μm pore size has been found to have good performance in reducing the foreign body reaction upon implantation, and since the inner structure is regular, a stereolithography 3D printing system was tried to print this high-resolution structure. This work has demonstrated with the laser intensity at 1×10-6% and the writing speed at 1mm/s, the top surface of this structure can be printed with the commercially available resin DS2000, but the side faces cannot be properly printed due to the photo sensitiveness of the resin. The top surface of a complex and large shape, an insulin pump catheter, was also printed well. A few 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) based formulas have also been tried in the printer, though further optimization is needed to accurately print high resolution structures with HEMA.