Highly biocompatible, customisable, and flexible soybean oil-based resins based on LCD light-curing 3D printing technology for pet therapy and drug delivery

In recent years, vegetable oils have made a big splash in the field of photosensitive resin materials due to their advantages of being non-wasteful, environmentally friendly, and sustainable. Photosensitive resins were seldom applied in the prevention and treatment of animal parasites due to their potential risk to pet health. In this study, we advanced a novel flexible composite resin with high biocompatibility and drug delivery properties synthesized with acrylated epoxy soybean oil (AESO), polyethylene glycol diacrylate 400 (PEGDA400) and isobornyl acrylate (IBOA) based on the LCD light-curing 3D printing process. The experimental results indicated that the AESO/PEGDA400/IBOA (API) composite resin exhibited promising printability and mechanical properties as an <i>in vitro</i> drug release material with a tensile strength of 6.7 MPa and an elongation at break of 39.4%. The cytotoxicity test with L929 cells exhibited almost no dead cells, which further illustrated the biocompatibility of the API composite resin. The <i>in vitro</i> test indicated that the anthelmintic effect of composite drug-carrying collars lasted for more than 28 days. Therefore, the obtained 3D printable API composite resin has great potential for drug delivery and animal therapy applications.