title: Research on the printability of hydrogels in 3D bioprinting.
abstract: As the biocompatible materials, hydrogels have been widely used in three- dimensional (3D) bioprinting/organ printing to load cell for tissue engineering. It is important to precisely control hydrogels deposition during printing the mimic organ structures. However, the printability of hydrogels about printing parameters is seldom addressed. In this paper, we systemically investigated the printability of hydrogels from printing lines (one dimensional, 1D structures) to printing lattices/films (two dimensional, 2D structures) and printing 3D structures with a special attention to the accurate printing. After a series of experiments, we discovered the relationships between the important factors such as air pressure, feedrate, or even printing distance and the printing quality of the expected structures. Dumbbell shape was observed in the lattice structures printing due to the hydrogel diffuses at the intersection. Collapses and fusion of adjacent layer would result in the error accumulation at Z direction which was an important fact that could cause printing failure. Finally, we successfully demonstrated a 3D printing hydrogel scaffold through harmonize with all the parameters. The cell viability after printing was compared with the casting and the results showed that our bioprinting method almost had no extra damage to the cells.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710054, Xi'an China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: FeiFei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: HaiMing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.|Key Laboratory of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors.forename: JianZhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fu