Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
6.6
5.0
Journals
Polymers
Special Issues
3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II
share announcement

3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomacromolecules, Biobased and Biodegradable Polymers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 14856

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Mo Maniruzzaman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, College of Pharmacy, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Interests: 3D bioprinting; 3D printing; continuous manufacturing; drug formulation and delivery; implantable medical devices; smart biomaterials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

3D printing has emerged as one of the most versatile fabrication technologies, referred to as the additive manufacturing technique, which involves additives such as polymers and metals deposited in sequential layers to produce a 3D object (i.e., pills or medical devices). The convergence of additive manufacturing and printing materials is of significant aptitude for the advancement of person-specific products in the pharmaceutical and medical sphere. Geometric shapes as well as the visual effects of materials currently used in additive manufacturing play essential roles towards smooth fabrication with the highest shape fidelity possible. In most cases, especially in biomedical applications, functions of devices and structures are surprisingly limited by the complexity of the manageable shapes. Further, traditional processing techniques such as ink jet 2D printing or molding suffer from the failure of meeting the growing needs due to both the difficulty and production-associated cost. These inimitable needs have positioned 3D printing as an attractive option because of its supreme flexibility and versatility in producing complex structures. However, the application and practical potential of the current state of 3D printing is to some extent limited due to its speed for scale-up and meeting the growing demands for increased numbers of populations.

Therefore, it is projected that moving from the stepwise layer-by-layer process which is typical in 3D printing to a continuous process may significantly accelerate the practical potential of printing technology. Being based on traditional 3D printing, 4D printing can encompass a wide range of disciplines, such as materials science, bioengineering, and chemistry/chemical engineering, and has the true potential to emerge as the next-generation additive manufacturing technique. Using stimuli-responsive (also known as shape memory) materials, 4D printing creates structures that are capable of transforming from one shape to another, right off the print bed under various stimuli, such as heat, pH, water, etc.

The 3D printing process optimization, engineering, formulation compositions, advanced drug delivery, materials properties, and characterizations, and the state-of-the-art and limitations that exist in the current printing modalities will be explored in this proposed Special Issue of Polymers.

Dr. Mo Maniruzzaman
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • 3D and 4D printing
  • biomaterials
  • implants
  • smart implants
  • drug delivery
  • additive manufacturing
  • advanced drug delivery
  • continuous manufacturing
  • 3D printing of pills
  • novel excipients for 3D printing
  • simulation/process engineering

Published Papers (5 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

21 pages, 37547 KiB  
Article
Modeling the Producibility of 3D Printing in Polylactic Acid Using Artificial Neural Networks and Fused Filament Fabrication
by Mohammad Saleh Meiabadi, Mahmoud Moradi, Mojtaba Karamimoghadam, Sina Ardabili, Mahdi Bodaghi, Manouchehr Shokri and Amir H. Mosavi
Polymers 2021, 13(19), 3219; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13193219 - 23 Sep 2021
Cited by 31 | Viewed by 3369
Abstract
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a highly applicable material that is used in 3D printers due to some significant features such as its deformation property and affordable cost. For improvement of the end-use quality, it is of significant importance to enhance the quality of [...] Read more.
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a highly applicable material that is used in 3D printers due to some significant features such as its deformation property and affordable cost. For improvement of the end-use quality, it is of significant importance to enhance the quality of fused filament fabrication (FFF)-printed objects in PLA. The purpose of this investigation was to boost toughness and to reduce the production cost of the FFF-printed tensile test samples with the desired part thickness. To remove the need for numerous and idle printing samples, the response surface method (RSM) was used. Statistical analysis was performed to deal with this concern by considering extruder temperature (ET), infill percentage (IP), and layer thickness (LT) as controlled factors. The artificial intelligence method of artificial neural network (ANN) and ANN-genetic algorithm (ANN-GA) were further developed to estimate the toughness, part thickness, and production-cost-dependent variables. Results were evaluated by correlation coefficient and RMSE values. According to the modeling results, ANN-GA as a hybrid machine learning (ML) technique could enhance the accuracy of modeling by about 7.5, 11.5, and 4.5% for toughness, part thickness, and production cost, respectively, in comparison with those for the single ANN method. On the other hand, the optimization results confirm that the optimized specimen is cost-effective and able to comparatively undergo deformation, which enables the usability of printed PLA objects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 6962 KiB  
Article
Comparative Study of the Influence of Bio-Resin Color on the Dimension, Flatness and Straightness of the Part in the 3D Printing Process
by Aurel Tulcan, Mircea Dorin Vasilescu and Liliana Tulcan
Polymers 2021, 13(9), 1412; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13091412 - 27 Apr 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1977
Abstract
This paper aims to determine whether the color of based-plant resin called, by the manufacturer, eco-resin has an influence on the dimensions and geometric accuracy of the 3D-printed part. The analysis of flatness, straightness and dimensions deviations was carried out with high-precision measurement [...] Read more.
This paper aims to determine whether the color of based-plant resin called, by the manufacturer, eco-resin has an influence on the dimensions and geometric accuracy of the 3D-printed part. The analysis of flatness, straightness and dimensions deviations was carried out with high-precision measurement systems, and according to current standards regarding linear dimensions and geometrical tolerances. A coordinate measuring machine with contact probes was used to measure the printed part’s physical characteristics, and analysis of variance and response surface design methods were used for the data analysis. The printing experiment was carried out for each color. After that, the measurement of the printed parts and the study of the data were performed. The first finding is that for black and clear eco-resin, there are problems with the printing of the supports. Based on standard data for the range of nominal lengths of the part for linear dimensions, flatness and straightness, the measurement results can be included in different tolerance classes within standard value limits. The best value of the printed structure was obtained for clear eco-resin. The paper demonstrates that the impact of the color of the eco-resin is more important than the supports density for all the studied features. Based on 3D measurements, the optimal values for each of the eco-resin colors regarding the flatness, straightness and linear dimensions deviations of the 3D printed part were also determined. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

19 pages, 7847 KiB  
Article
Optimization Shape-Memory Situations of a Stimulus Responsive Composite Material
by Wei-Chun Lin, Fang-Yu Fan, Hsing-Chung Cheng, Yi Lin, Yung-Kang Shen, Jing-Shiuan Lai, Liping Wang and Muhammad Ruslin
Polymers 2021, 13(5), 697; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13050697 - 25 Feb 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2228
Abstract
In these times of Industrial 4.0 and Health 4.0, people currently want to enhance the ability of science and technology, to focus on patient aspects. However, with intelligent, green energy and biomedicine these days, traditional three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has been unable to [...] Read more.
In these times of Industrial 4.0 and Health 4.0, people currently want to enhance the ability of science and technology, to focus on patient aspects. However, with intelligent, green energy and biomedicine these days, traditional three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has been unable to meet our needs, so 4D printing has now arisen. In this research, a shape-memory composite material with 3D printing technology was used for 4D printing technology. The authors used fused deposition modeling (FDM) to print a polylactic acid (PLA) strip onto the surface of paper to create a shape-memory composite material, and a stimulus (heat) was used to deform and recover the shape of this material. The deformation angle and recovery angle of the material were studied with various processing parameters (heating temperature, heating time, pitch, and printing speed). This research discusses optimal processing related to shape-memory situations of stimulus-responsive composite materials. The optimal deformation angle (maximum) of the stimulus-responsive composite material was found with a thermal stimulus for an optimal heating temperature of 190 °C, a heating time of 20 s, a pitch of 1.5 mm, and a printing speed of 80 mm/s. The optimal recovery angle (minimum) of this material was found with a thermal stimulus for an optimal heating temperature of 170 °C, a heating time of 90 s, a pitch of 2.0 mm, and a printing speed of 80 mm/s. The most important factor affecting both the deformation and recovery angle of the stimulus-responsive composite material was the heating temperature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 6863 KiB  
Article
Development of Antimicrobial PLA Composites for Fused Filament Fabrication
by Zachary Brounstein, Chris M. Yeager and Andrea Labouriau
Polymers 2021, 13(4), 580; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13040580 - 15 Feb 2021
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 3926
Abstract
In addition to possessing the desirable properties of being a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer fabricated from renewable resources, poly (lactic acid) (PLA) has useful mechanical and thermal attributes that has enabled it to be one of the most widely-used plastics for medicine, manufacturing, [...] Read more.
In addition to possessing the desirable properties of being a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer fabricated from renewable resources, poly (lactic acid) (PLA) has useful mechanical and thermal attributes that has enabled it to be one of the most widely-used plastics for medicine, manufacturing, and agriculture. Yet, PLA composites have not been heavily explored for use in 3D-printing applications, and the range of feasible materials for the technology is limited, which inhibits its potential growth and industry adoption. In this study, tunable, multifunctional antimicrobial PLA composite filaments for 3D-printing have been fabricated and tested via chemical, thermal, mechanical, and antimicrobial experiments. Thermally stable antimicrobial ceramics, ZnO and TiO2, were used as fillers up to 30 wt%, and poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) was used as a plasticizer to tune the physical material properties. Results demonstrate that the PLA composite filaments exhibit the thermal phase behaviors and thermal stability suitable for 3D-printing. Additionally, PEG can be used to tune the mechanical properties while not affecting the antimicrobial efficacy that ZnO and TiO2 imbue. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

16 pages, 5849 KiB  
Article
The Study of Physico-Mechanical Properties of Polylactide Composites with Different Level of Infill Produced by the FDM Method
by Anna Gaweł and Stanisław Kuciel
Polymers 2020, 12(12), 3056; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12123056 - 20 Dec 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2255
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in physical-mechanical properties of the samples manufactured by 3D printing technology with the addition of varying degrees of polylactide (PLA) infill (50, 70, 85 and 100%). Half of the samples were soaked in [...] Read more.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in physical-mechanical properties of the samples manufactured by 3D printing technology with the addition of varying degrees of polylactide (PLA) infill (50, 70, 85 and 100%). Half of the samples were soaked in physiological saline. The material used for the study was neat PLA, which was examined in terms of hydrolytic degradation, crystallization, mechanical strength, variability of properties at elevated temperatures, and dissipation of mechanical energy depending on the performed treatment. A significant impact of the amount of infill on changeable mechanical properties, such as hydrolytic degradation and crystallization was observed. The FDM printing method allows for waste–free production of light weight unit products with constant specyfic strength. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D and 4D Printing of (Bio)Materials II)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-5
Back to TopTop