Towards an Ultra-Affordable Three-Dimensional Bioprinter: A Heated Inductive-Enabled Syringe Pump Extrusion Multifunction Module for Open-Source Fused Deposition Modeling Three-Dimensional Printers

Abstract

Abstract The extrusion systems of the widespread Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) three-dimensional (3D) printers enable printing only with materials in the filament form. This property hinders the usage of these FDM 3D printers in many fields where the printing materials are in forms other than filaments. Thus, this paper proposes a Heated Inductive-enabled Syringe Pump Extrusion (HISPE) multifunction open-source module with a potential application in bioprinting (i.e., extrusion-based bioprinting). The proposed HISPE module is designed to be cost-effective, simple, and easy to replicate. It is capable of replacing the conventional extrusion system of any open-source cartesian FDM 3D printer. This module widens both the range of the FDM 3D printing materials (e.g., bioinks, biopolymers, blends of materials, or composites) and their forms (e.g., hydrogels, powder, pellets, or flakes). The capabilities of the proposed module were investigated through 3D printing bone scaffolds with a filament diameter of 400 µm and pore size of 350 µm by a polycaprolactone (PCL) biodegradable polymer in the pellets form. The morphological accuracy of the printed scaffolds was investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The investigation results confirm the accurateness of the proposed HISPE module in printing high-precision models.