Additive manufacturing of vascular stents

With the advancement of additive manufacturing (AM), customized vascular stents can now be fabricated to fit the curvatures and sizes of a narrowed or blocked blood vessel, thereby reducing the possibility of thrombosis and restenosis. More importantly, AM enables the design and fabrication of complex and functional stent unit cells that...

Sustainable Sources of Raw Materials for Additive Manufacturing of Bone-Substituting Biomaterials

The need for sustainable development has never been more urgent, as the world continues to struggle with environmental challenges, such as climate change, pollution, and dwindling natural resources. The use of renewable and recycled waste materials as a source of raw materials for biomaterials and tissue engineering is a promising avenue for...

Additive Manufacturing of Biomaterials: Design Principles and Their Implementation

Additive manufacturing (AM, also known as 3D printing) is an advanced manufacturing technique that has enabled progress in the design and fabrication of customised or patient-specific (meta-)biomaterials and biomedical devices (e.g., implants, prosthetics, and orthotics) with complex internal microstructures and tuneable properties. In the past...

Improving the Mechanical Properties of Additively Manufactured Micro-Architected Biodegradable Metals

Additively manufactured (AM) micro-architected biodegradable metals offer a unique combination of properties that are ideal for bone regeneration including biocompatibility, a fully interconnected porous structure, and the possibility to fully regenerate bony defects with native tissue upon biodegradation. Currently, the mechanical properties...

Additively Manufactured Absorbable Porous Metal Implants: Processing, Alloying and Corrosion Behavior

Treating large bone defects is still a clinical challenge without perfect solution, mainly due to the unavailability of suitable bone implants. Additively manufactured (AM) absorbable porous metals provide unparalleled opportunities to realize the challenging requirements for bone-mimetic implants. Firstly, multi-scale geometries of such...

Additively manufactured biodegradable porous metals

Partially due to the unavailability of ideal bone substitutes, the treatment of large bony defects remains one of the most important challenges of orthopedic surgery. Additively manufactured (AM) biodegradable porous metals that have emerged since 2018 provide unprecedented opportunities for fulfilling the requirements of an ideal bone...

Multi-material additive manufacturing technologies for Ti-, Mg-, and Fe-based biomaterials for bone substitution

The growing interest in multi-functional metallic biomaterials for bone substitutes challenges the current additive manufacturing (AM, =3D printing) technologies. It is foreseeable that advances in multi-material AM for metallic biomaterials will not only allow for complex geometrical designs, but also improve their multi-functionalities by...