A new photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone‐based ink for three‐dimensional inkjet printing

He, Yinfeng; Tuck, Christopher; Prina, Elisabetta; Kilsby, Samuel; Christie, Steven; Edmondson, Steve; Hague, Richard J.M.; Rose, Felicity R.A.J.; Wildman, Ricky D.

A new photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone‐based ink for three‐dimensional inkjet printing

journal contribution

posted on 2016-05-16, 10:32 authored by Yinfeng He, Christopher Tuck, Elisabetta Prina, Samuel Kilsby, Steven ChristieSteven Christie, Steve Edmondson, Richard J.M. Hague, Felicity R.A.J. Rose, Ricky D. Wildman

A new type of photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone (PCL) based ink that is suitable for three-dimensional (3D) inkjet printing has been developed. Photocrosslinkable Polycaprolactone dimethylacrylate (PCLDMA) was synthesized and mixed with poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) to prepare an ink with a suitable viscosity for inkjet printing. The ink performance under different printing environments, initiator concentrations, and post processes was studied. This showed that a nitrogen atmosphere during printing was beneficial for curing and material property optimization, as well as improving the quality of structures produced. A simple structure, built in the z-direction, demonstrated the potential for this material for the production of 3D printed objects. Cell tests were carried out to investigate the biocompatibility of the developed ink.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge funding support from University of Nottingham, the EPSRC (Grant number EP/1033335/2, EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing) and Loughborough University. Elisabetta Prina was funded by the EPSRC and MRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Regenerative Medicine (EP/L015072/1).

History

School

Science

Department

Chemistry

Published in

Journal of Biomedical Materials Rrsearch: Part B.

Citation

HE, Y. ... et al, 2016. A new photocrosslinkable polycaprolactone‐based ink for three‐dimensional inkjet printing. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research: Part B, 105 (6), pp. 1645–1657.

Publisher

Wiley / © The Authors

Version

VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-04-25

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an Open Access article published by Wiley and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/