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S. Stanic, S. Baudis, M. Schwentenwein, R. Liska:
"3D printing of filled hydrogels as ceramic precursors and biocomposites";
Talk: Bypos Workshop 2017, Zemplínská Sírava, Slovakia; 2017-06-12 - 2017-06-16; in: "Bypos Workshop Book 2017", (2017), 31.

Hydrogels are crosslinked 3D networks, which consist of a lot amount of water and can be divided in synthetic polymeric hydrogels and naturally-derived hydrogels. In combination with lithography-based AMT (3D printing) is it possible to achieve a wide range of biological applications. Acrylated monomers are the most often used materials for AMT application, because they have a high reactivity. However, the high irritancy and cytotoxicity of unreacted acrylate groups it is not suitable for biocompatible hydrogels. So it was necessary to replace the acrylates monomer with an alternative monomer, which have a lower cytotoxicity compare to the acrylates monomer. Vinyl ester demonstrated this property but their reactivity are less than acrylates monomer. It was necessary to synthesize new monomer starting from commercially available divinyl adipate (DVA) applying lipase catalyzed transesterification reactions. The new obtained divinyl ester have an improved impact resistance, desired degradation behavior and low cytotoxicity1. To improve the reactivity of this system thiol-ene chemistry was used2.
In this work the hydrogels was printed with digital light processing (DLP), which is a method based on sterolithography3. With this technique is it possible to print geometric demanding structures, like in Firgue 1. The finally ceramic filled hydrogels - with the goal to obtain a fully sintered ceramic structure allows the processing of (bio)ceramic materials, including aluminia, zirconia, calcium phosphates and so on.

Hydrogels, 3D networks, synthetic polymeric hydrogels and naturally-derived hydrogels, lithography-based AMT (3D printing)