Department for Functional Materials in Medicine and Dentistry and Bavarian Polymer Institute, University Hospital Würzburg, Pleicherwall 2, 97070, Würzburg, Germany.
Department of Macromolecular Chemistry I and Bavarian Polymer Institute, University of Bayreuth, 95440, Bayreuth, Germany.
Macromol Rapid Commun. 2018 May;39(10):e1800055. doi: 10.1002/marc.201800055. Epub 2018 Apr 14.
Melt electrowriting (MEW), an additive manufacturing process, is established using polycaprolactone as the benchmark material. In this study, a thermoplastic elastomer, namely, poly(urea-siloxane), is synthesized and characterized to identify how different classes of polymers are compatible with MEW. This polyaddition polymer has reversible hydrogen bonding from the melt upon heating/cooling and highly resolved structures are achieved by MEW. The influence of applied voltage, temperature, and feeding pressure on printing outcomes behavior is optimized. Balancing these parameters, highly uniform and smooth-surfaced fibers with diameters ranging from 10 to 20 µm result. The quality of the 3D MEW scaffolds is excellent, with very accurate fiber stacking capacity-up to 50 layers with minimal defects and good fiber fusion between the layers. There is also minimal fiber sagging between the crossover points, which is a characteristic of thicker MEW scaffolds previously reported with other polymers. In summary, poly(urea-siloxane) demonstrates outstanding compatibility with the MEW process and represents a class of polymer-thermoplastic elastomers-that are, until now, untested with this approach.
熔融电写入（MEW）是一种增材制造工艺，以聚己内酯为基准材料。在本研究中，合成并表征了一种热塑性弹性体，即聚（脲-硅氧烷），以确定不同类别的聚合物与 MEW 的相容性。这种加聚物在加热/冷却时具有可逆的氢键，并且通过 MEW 可以实现高度分辨的结构。优化了施加电压、温度和进料压力对打印结果行为的影响。平衡这些参数，可以得到直径在 10 到 20 µm 之间的高度均匀且表面光滑的纤维。3D MEW 支架的质量非常好，具有非常精确的纤维堆叠能力-最多可堆叠 50 层，层间缺陷少，纤维融合良好。在交叉点之间也几乎没有纤维下垂，这是以前用其他聚合物报道的较厚 MEW 支架的特征。总之，聚（脲-硅氧烷）与 MEW 工艺具有出色的兼容性，代表了一类聚合物-热塑性弹性体，迄今为止，尚未用这种方法对其进行测试。
