3D Bioplotter Research Papers

With the increasing need for architectural sustainability, biodesign offers a new approach to incorporating living organisms in building materials. Bacteria hold a range of biological activities that impact their environment, and which could enable the solidification of inorganic materials; this has already been seen with microbially-induced carbonate precipitation that strengthens bonds between sand particles. This paper describes the novel development of an additive co-fabrication manufacturing process, demonstrating an interdisciplinary approach of architecture and microbiology. Specifically, the activity of a biological deposition (i.e., cyanobacterial calcium carbonate precipitation) and its integration with that of a robotic deposition (i.e., a sand-based biomixture) within…

Scaffolds are of great importance for tissue engineering because they enable the production of functional living implants out of cells obtained from cell culture. These scaffolds require individual external shape and well defined internal structure with interconnected porosity. The problem of the fabrication of prototypes from computer assisted design (CAD) data is well known in automotive industry. Rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are able to produce such parts. Some RP techniques exist for hard tissue implants. Soft tissue scaffolds need a hydrogel material. No biofunctional and cell compatible processing for hydrogels exists in the area of RP. Therefore, a new rapid…

In the year 2000 a new rapid prototyping (RP) technology was developed at the Freiburg Materials Research Center to meet the demands for desktop fabrication of scaffolds useful in tissue engineering. A key feature of this RP technology is the three-dimensional (3D) dispensing of liquids and pastes in liquid media. In contrast to conventional RP systems, mainly focused on melt processing, the 3D dispensing RP process (3D plotting) can apply a much larger variety of synthetic as well as natural materials, including aqueous solutions and pastes, to fabricate scaffolds for application in tissue engineering. For the first time, hydrogel scaffolds…