I'm testing a variety of self-healing gels as support gels into which I will be 3d printing hydrogels e.g. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/suppl/2015/10/20/1.9.e1500758.DC1/1500758_Movie_S3.mp4.
What are appropriate tests to perform which will highlight the suitability of the gel for this use and demonstrate the benefit of one gel over another?
Hi Ariel,
the analysis to test printable material suitability to cell vary according to the cell type, in general you can test cell survival, adhesion and spreding.
Good luck
Cesare
Thanks Cesare, I will be performing a variety of cell tests in parallel, however, this question was specific to the printing of one gel in another, and how the choice of support gel may affect print behaviour.
- Dear Ariel. I found your question very intriguing, as well as your researh. Unfortunately I am a "basic" Orthopaedic Surgeon and therefore, I an afraid, I cannot be of any help to you!
Hi Ariel,
The properties you are looking for in support gels are high yield stress with shear thinning behaviours. With high yield stress, the support gels will stop flowing very fast once the needle passed by, in that way your printed shape will be retained very well. And the shear thinning property, as for most of gels are shear thinning, here you should be looking at the ones that particularly with a fast drop in viscosity, combining with a high yield stress.
I haven't done it myself, but I think, to test the support gels, you might want to do the rheology tests with a stress-relaxation setting. The stress should be calculated to correlate to your printing speed and needle size etc.
Hope this helps. Good luck with your project!
Cheers,
Binbin
Hi Binbin,
Thanks for the response. I have looked at the above properties, but have not yet looked into/worked out how to correlate it to these physical properties such as needle size and print speed. The next goal is to create a set of tests to physically show that a gel is/isn't acceptable for use as support material.
Ariel
Maybe indentation tests could be useful, too. If resistance to penetration is too high your gel will create problems with the needle, while if too low you could experience problems during 3d printing. Inentation tests may be performed via DMA equipment or, for highest resolution, via AFM.
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