| It is well known that isomalt is a sugar alcohol used to make throat lozenges, which can reduce sore throats and can help save lives. 3D printing One of the most difficult parts is the development of scaffolds for forming 3D printed tissues, but engineers at the University of Illinois have discovered a material that can be used to make 3D printed scaffolds. This is sugar, especially isomalt.  Water soluble biodegradable isomalt can be used as free form 3D printing technology For 3D printing, the technique is essentially drawn in mid-air - the sugar hardens as the air injects, making it possible to maintain its structure without immediately forming another layer beneath it. This allows the engineer to print Exquisite filament mesh, not solid objects. Rohit Bhargava, professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois and director of the Cancer Center, said: 'This is a good way to create shapes. We can design soft materials around them or grow cells and tissues and then the stents dissolve away. For example, One possible application is to cultivate tissue or study tumors in the laboratory. Cell culture is usually done on a petri dish. This gives us some of the characteristics of the cell, but it is not a very dynamic way to look at a system in the body. Actual function. In the body, there is a clear shape, shape and function are very closely related. Previously, sugar has been used for 3D printing, but it is very easy to burn or crystallize. As explained in the paper titled 'Model-guided design and characterization of a high-precision 3D printing process for carbohydrate glass'. The person built a special 3D printer with the right temperature, nozzle pressure and diameter, and was able to quickly print the material.  'Behind materials and mechanics, the third part is computer science,' said Matthew Gelber, Ph.D. graduate and first author of the dissertation. 'You have a design of what you want to do, how do you tell the printer to make it? How do you do it? Calculate the sequence of all these intersecting filaments so that it does not fold?' University of Illinois researchers collaborated with Wolfram Research's Greg Hurst to create an algorithm for designing scaffolding and drawing print paths. One of the advantages of 3D printing free-form structures is that they can make thin tubes with a circular cross-section, which is not possible in traditional 3D printing. When sugar dissolves, it leaves connected cylindrical tubes and tunnels, These tubes and tunnels can act like blood vessels, transport nutrients in tissues or create channels in microfluidic devices. In addition, by making minor changes to 3D printer parameters, the mechanical properties of various parts of an object can be precisely controlled.  'For example, we printed a rabbit. In principle, we can change the mechanical properties of the rabbit's tail to make it different from the rabbit's back, but unlike the ears,' Bhargava said. 'This is biologically important. In printing, you have the same material and the same amount of deposition, so it is very difficult to adjust the mechanical properties. Bhargava and his team are using sugar scaffolds for a variety of microfluidic devices and cell cultures, and are striving to control their dissolution rates for stents. The recently published paper is part of a series of publications based on the work of Gelber's thesis, with a focus on How to build a special 3D printer and create the algorithms needed to operate it. The researchers hope that others can use their models to build printers and explore different applications of isomalt structure. Bhargava said: 'This printer is an example of a project that has a long-term impact on biological research. This is a fundamental project that combines materials science and computer science and creates useful devices for biomedical applications.' Source: 3D Tiger |
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