(Nanowerk Highlight) The event of sustainable and biocompatible supplies has turn out to be more and more essential in scientific analysis, pushed by rising environmental issues and the necessity for superior biomedical functions. This push in the direction of extra eco-friendly and biologically appropriate supplies has been significantly evident within the area of additive manufacturing, the place conventional petrochemical-based assets have lengthy dominated. Whereas varied renewable sources have been explored, together with plant-based oils and agricultural waste merchandise, many challenges have continued in creating supplies which can be each eco-friendly and appropriate for superior manufacturing strategies.
The sphere of additive manufacturing, significantly 3D printing, has revolutionized the manufacturing of complicated buildings throughout varied industries. Nevertheless, the supplies utilized in these processes have largely remained depending on non-renewable assets, creating a major sustainability problem. This contradiction between the superior capabilities of 3D printing and its reliance on unsustainable supplies has prompted researchers to research different feedstocks that may meet the stringent necessities of high-resolution 3D printing whereas additionally addressing environmental issues.
Microalgae have emerged as a promising candidate on this seek for sustainable assets. These microscopic organisms possess a number of advantageous traits, together with fast progress charges, excessive biomass productiveness, and the flexibility to repair atmospheric carbon dioxide. Furthermore, microalgae will be cultivated in varied environments, together with non-arable land and wastewater, with out competing with meals manufacturing. Regardless of these potential advantages, harnessing microalgae for superior manufacturing functions has remained largely unexplored.
A major breakthrough on this space has now been achieved by a staff of researchers who’ve efficiently developed a technique to make use of microalgae-derived supplies for high-resolution 3D printing. This revolutionary strategy, detailed in a current paper in Superior Supplies (“Printing Green: Microalgae-Based Materials for 3D Printing with Light”), combines the sustainable attributes of microalgae with the precision of two-photon laser printing expertise.
Overview of the strategy established on this work. Two microalgae, particularly Odontella aurita (O. aurita) and Tetraselmis striata (T. striata), have been chosen and cultivated. The extracts obtained from these microalgae (primarily triglycerides with some chlorophylls) have been functionalized with photopolymerizable teams and used as printable supplies for two-photon 3D laser printing. Moreover, the 3D printed microstructures are afterwards characterised, and their biocompatibility is studied by way of cell viability assays. (Picture: Reproduced with permission by Wiley-VCH Verlag)
Maybe one of the vital vital findings of this analysis was the invention that the chlorophyll derivatives naturally current within the microalgae extracts may function efficient photoinitiators. This eliminates the necessity for added, probably poisonous photoinitiating brokers generally utilized in standard 3D printing formulations. The focus of those pigments was estimated to be round 0.4 wt% within the ink, which proved adequate to provoke the polymerization course of throughout printing. This use of pure, bio-derived photoinitiators represents a significant step in the direction of absolutely sustainable and biocompatible 3D printing supplies.
The analysis staff recognized two particular microalgae strains, Odontella aurita and Tetraselmis striata, as appropriate candidates for his or her research. These strains had been chosen based mostly on their excessive lipid content material, significantly triglycerides, and their fast progress charges. The researchers developed an optimized extraction course of to isolate the lipids from the microalgae biomass, specializing in acquiring triglycerides with a excessive diploma of unsaturation.
A key innovation on this work was the chemical functionalization of the extracted triglycerides with acrylate teams. This modification was essential because it remodeled the microalgae-derived supplies into photoreactive substances appropriate for two-photon 3D laser printing. The researchers tailored a solvent-free, one-step strategy to introduce acrylate moieties to the triglyceride molecules. This course of resulted in O. aurita-based inks with a mean of two.3 acrylate teams per molecule and T. striata-based inks with 2.8 acrylate teams per molecule. These functionalized supplies may then be straight used as printable inks with out the necessity for added parts.
The staff carried out intensive research to find out the optimum printing parameters for these novel microalgae-based inks. They efficiently demonstrated the flexibility to manufacture intricate 3D microstructures with sub-micron decision, together with complicated geometries with overhanging options. The printed buildings exhibited easy surfaces and well-defined options, showcasing the prime quality achievable with these sustainable supplies.
SEM photographs of 3D microstructures printed utilizing O. aurita-based and T. striata-based inks demonstrating the effectivity of the microalgae-based programs. Within the case of O. aurita-based inks, a laser energy of 25 mW and a scan velocity of 12 000 µm s−1 had been chosen for filigree buildings such because the Benchy, the buckyball and the gyroid geometry. For cumbersome buildings, such because the submarine and the circularity image, the scan velocity was elevated to 14 000 – 16 000 µm s−1. For T. striata-based inks, laser powers between 15 and 20 mW at a scanning velocity of 18 000 µm s−1 carried out greatest for cumbersome buildings, whereas filigree buildings had been ideally printed utilizing 20 mW and 12 000 – 14 000 µm s−1. Scale bar = 10 µm. (Picture: Reproduced with permission by Wiley-VCH Verlag)
To guage the potential of those microalgae-derived supplies for biomedical functions, the researchers carried out cell viability assays. They cultured rat embryonic fibroblasts on 3D printed scaffolds and noticed that the cells adhered properly to the buildings and remained viable. This discovering signifies the biocompatibility of the printed supplies, opening up potentialities for his or her use in tissue engineering and different biomedical fields.
The staff additionally carried out nanoindentation assessments to characterize the mechanical properties of the printed buildings. The outcomes revealed distinct properties for supplies derived from completely different microalgae strains. Buildings printed with O. aurita inks exhibited a diminished elastic modulus of 108.7 ± 7.5 MPa and a hardness of three.2 ± 0.1 MPa. In distinction, the 3D microstructures printed utilizing T. striata ink confirmed increased values, with a modulus of 786.3 ± 51.6 MPa and a hardness of 31.5 ± 1.5 MPa. These findings recommend that the selection of microalgae pressure can considerably affect the mechanical traits of the printed buildings, providing the potential to tailor materials properties for particular functions.
This analysis represents a major step ahead within the improvement of sustainable and biocompatible supplies for superior manufacturing. By harnessing the pure properties of microalgae, the researchers have created a novel class of printable supplies that deal with a number of longstanding challenges within the area. The flexibility to make use of microalgae-derived triglycerides as the first part of the printing ink, coupled with the utilization of chlorophyll derivatives as pure photoinitiators, gives a completely bio-based answer that eliminates the necessity for petrochemical-derived components.
The implications of this work lengthen past the realm of 3D printing. The profitable demonstration of high-resolution fabrication with these microalgae-based supplies opens up new potentialities for creating complicated, biocompatible buildings for tissue engineering, drug supply programs, and different biomedical functions. Furthermore, the sustainable nature of microalgae cultivation and the carbon-fixing properties of those organisms contribute to the general environmental advantages of this strategy.
Whereas this analysis marks a major development, additional work might be essential to totally notice the potential of microalgae-derived supplies in industrial functions. Scaling up the manufacturing course of, optimizing the extraction and functionalization strategies, and increasing the vary of printable buildings are areas that warrant continued investigation. Moreover, exploring a greater variety of microalgae strains may result in the event of supplies with numerous properties tailor-made for particular functions.
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