| Aug 09, 2024 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Microalgae such because the diatom Odontella aurita and the inexperienced alga Tetraselmis striata are particularly appropriate as “biofactories” for the manufacturing of sustainable supplies for 3D laser printing because of their excessive content material in lipids and photoactive pigments. A world analysis workforce led by Prof. Dr Eva Blasco, a scientist on the Institute for Molecular Techniques Engineering and Superior Supplies (IMSEAM) of Heidelberg College, has succeeded for the primary time in manufacturing inks for printing advanced biocompatible 3D microstructures from the uncooked supplies extracted from the microalgae. The microalgae-based supplies may very well be utilized in future as the premise for implants or scaffolds for 3D cell cultures.
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The analysis has been revealed in Superior Supplies (“Printing Green: Microalgae-Based Materials for 3D Printing with Light”).
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| A brand new ink system, primarily based on the microalgae Odontella aurita and Tetraselmis striata, allows the manufacturing of advanced 3D microstructures with top quality and precision. (Picture: Clara Vazquez-Martel)
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Among the many additive manufacturing methods, two-photon 3D laser printing gives explicit benefits for manufacturing on the micro- and nanoscale. Owing to its outstanding decision, it finds software in quite a few fields together with optics and photonics, microfluidics, and biomedicine. The method entails focusing a laser beam on a liquid, photoreactive resin, a so-called “ink”. At the point of interest, the laser gentle prompts particular molecules generally known as photoinitiators and triggers a chemical response, inflicting native solidification of the ink.
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Up to now, petrochemical-based polymers have been primarily used as inks for this extremely exact 3D laser printing course of. Nonetheless, these polymers contribute to the depletion of fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases and can even include poisonous parts, as Prof. Blasco factors out. Microalgae are significantly properly suited as “biofactories” for the manufacturing of sustainable supplies for 3D printing because of their fast progress fee, CO2-fixation throughout cultivation, and biocompatibility.
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“Despite their advantages, microalgae have hardly been considered as raw materials for light-based 3D printing,” says Prof. Blasco, whose group conducts analysis on the interface of macromolecular chemistry, supplies science, and 3D nanofabrication.
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The analysis workforce succeeded for the primary time in extracting biocompatible supplies for high-resolution 3D laser printing from microalgae. For his or her experiments, the researchers chosen two species – the diatom Odontella aurita and the inexperienced alga Tetraselmis striata – that include significantly excessive ranges of lipids within the type of triglycerides. The workforce extracted the triglycerides and functionalized them with acrylates to facilitate fast curing underneath gentle irradiation. The photoactive inexperienced pigments current within the microalgae proved to be appropriate as photoinitiators. When uncovered to gentle, they set off the chemical response that solidifies the ink right into a three-dimensional construction.
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“In this way we avoid using potentially toxic additives like the photoinitiators used in conventional inks,” explains first writer Clara Vazquez-Martel, a doctoral candidate in Eva Blasco’s analysis workforce at IMSEAM.
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Utilizing the brand new ink system, the researchers had been in a position to produce completely different 3D microstructures with excessive precision, exhibiting advanced options comparable to overhanging roofs and cavities. Utilizing cell tradition experiments, the researchers additionally investigated the biocompatibility of the microalgae-based inks. They ready 3D microscaffolds on which the cells had been cultured for about 24 hours. They noticed a survival fee of virtually one hundred pc.
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“Our results open up new possibilities not only for more sustainable 3D printing with light, but also for life science applications – from 3D cell cultures to biocompatible implants,” says Prof. Blasco.
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