Characterization of hydrogel-based biomaterials for 3D printed artificial tissue scaffolds

Abstract

The 3D printing of patient-specific artificial tissue scaffolds has gained vast interest in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This comes with the demand to develop novel biomaterial inks with highly tunable rheological properties that maximizes their applications to various tissue types. Hence, characterization of the ink’s rheological properties is imperative to optimize its printability and viability in printing complex structures. In this study, a new carrageenan-based biomaterial ink was developed and characterized in terms of its rheological properties and printability. The rheological property and printability of the developed ink were compared with the commercial bone bioink. Based on the results, it is inferred that the carrageenan-based ink exhibited similar rheological behavior with the commercial ink while the printed structure demonstrated better spreadability. Therefore, carrageenan-based ink can be a viable substitute for commercial bone bioink. Meanwhile, the commercial photoink showed viscous-dominated behavior, which is important when used for light-based printing. These results confirm that the viscoelastic properties of a biomaterial ink dictate its specific 3D printing application.