3D laser printing with bioinks from microalgae

Aug 09, 2024 (Nanowerk Information) Microalgae such because the diatom Odontella aurita and the inexperienced alga Tetraselmis striata are particularly appropriate as “biofactories” for the manufacturing of sustainable supplies for 3D laser printing as a result of their excessive content material in lipids and photoactive pigments. A global analysis staff led by Prof. Dr Eva Blasco, a scientist on the Institute for Molecular Methods Engineering and Superior Supplies (IMSEAM) of Heidelberg College, has succeeded for the primary time in manufacturing inks for printing complicated biocompatible 3D microstructures from the uncooked supplies extracted from the microalgae. The microalgae-based supplies could possibly be utilized in future as the idea for implants or scaffolds for 3D cell cultures. The analysis has been revealed in Superior Supplies (“Printing Inexperienced: Microalgae-Primarily based Supplies for 3D Printing with Mild”).A brand new ink system, based mostly on the microalgae Odontella aurita and Tetraselmis striata, allows the manufacturing of complicated 3D microstructures with prime quality and precision. (Picture: Clara Vazquez-Martel) Among the many additive manufacturing methods, two-photon 3D laser printing gives explicit benefits for manufacturing on the micro- and nanoscale. Owing to its outstanding decision, it finds software in quite a few fields together with optics and photonics, microfluidics, and biomedicine. The method includes focusing a laser beam on a liquid, photoreactive resin, a so-called “ink”. At the point of interest, the laser mild prompts particular molecules often known as photoinitiators and triggers a chemical response, inflicting native solidification of the ink. To this point, petrochemical-based polymers have been primarily used as inks for this extremely exact 3D laser printing course of. Nevertheless, these polymers contribute to the depletion of fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases and also can include poisonous elements, as Prof. Blasco factors out. Microalgae are notably effectively suited as “biofactories” for the manufacturing of sustainable supplies for 3D printing as a result of their speedy progress price, CO2-fixation throughout cultivation, and biocompatibility. “Regardless of their benefits, microalgae have hardly been thought-about as uncooked supplies for light-based 3D printing,” says Prof. Blasco, whose group conducts analysis on the interface of macromolecular chemistry, supplies science, and 3D nanofabrication. The analysis staff succeeded for the primary time in extracting biocompatible supplies for high-resolution 3D laser printing from microalgae. For his or her experiments, the researchers chosen two species – the diatom Odontella aurita and the inexperienced alga Tetraselmis striata – that include notably excessive ranges of lipids within the type of triglycerides. The staff extracted the triglycerides and functionalized them with acrylates to facilitate speedy curing below mild irradiation. The photoactive inexperienced pigments current within the microalgae proved to be appropriate as photoinitiators. When uncovered to mild, they set off the chemical response that solidifies the ink right into a three-dimensional construction. “On this approach we keep away from utilizing doubtlessly poisonous components just like the photoinitiators utilized in standard inks,” explains first creator Clara Vazquez-Martel, a doctoral candidate in Eva Blasco’s analysis staff at IMSEAM. Utilizing the brand new ink system, the researchers had been in a position to produce totally different 3D microstructures with excessive precision, exhibiting complicated options similar to overhanging roofs and cavities. Utilizing cell tradition experiments, the researchers additionally investigated the biocompatibility of the microalgae-based inks. They ready 3D microscaffolds on which the cells had been cultured for about 24 hours. They noticed a survival price of just about one hundred pc. “Our outcomes open up new prospects not just for extra sustainable 3D printing with mild, but in addition for all times science functions – from 3D cell cultures to biocompatible implants,” says Prof. Blasco.