High‐Speed Embedded Ink Writing of Anatomic‐Size Organ Constructs
Embedded ink writing (EIW) is an emerging 3D printing technique that fabricates complex 3D structures from various biomaterial inks but is limited to a printing speed of ∼10 mm s<sup>-1</sup> due to suboptimal rheological properties of particulate-dominated yield-stress fluids when used as liquid baths. In this work, a particle-hydrogel interactive system to design advanced baths with enhanced yield stress and extended thixotropic response time for realizing high-speed EIW is developed. In this system, the interactions between particle additive and three representative polymeric hydrogels enable the resulting nanocomposites to demonstrate different rheological behaviors. Accordingly, the interaction models for the nanocomposites are established, which are subsequently validated by macroscale rheological measurements and advanced microstructure characterization techniques. Filament formation mechanisms in the particle-hydrogel interactive baths are comprehensively investigated at high printing speeds. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed high-speed EIW method, an anatomic-size human kidney construct is successfully printed at 110 mm s<sup>-1</sup>, which only takes ∼4 h. This work breaks the printing speed barrier in current EIW and propels the maximum printing speed by at least 10 times, providing an efficient and promising solution for organ reconstruction in the future.
Authors
- Dale K. Hensley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8763-7765)
- Erick R. Bandala (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9553-1581)
- Lily Raymond
- Fazlay Rubbi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2684-0628)
- Kellen Mitchell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3035-2432)
- Guangrui Chai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4284-6584)
- Weijian Hua (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5083-712X)
- Jihua Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6879-5936)
- Changwoo Do (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8358-8417)
- Ryan Coulter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8892-603X)
- Yiliang Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7122-3920)
- Yifei Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4336-1802)
- Akhilesh K. Gaharwar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0284-0201)
- Yan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9474-6396)
- Danyang Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9220-9770)
- Cheng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4134-2854)
- Haoran Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7299-7098)
- Zhengyi Zhang
Institutions
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- University of Nevada, Reno (US)
- Iowa State University (US)
- Dalian University of Technology (CN)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Texas A&M University (US)
- China Medical University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Science
- Published
- 2025-02-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202405980
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- 3D Printing in Biomedical Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.04
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Nevada System of Higher Education
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Office of Science
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Office of Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory