Rahman Al Mazedur, Akib Yeasir Mohammad, Bedsole Caleb Oliver, Pei Zhijian, Shaw Brian D, Ufodike Chukwuzubelu Okenwa, Castell-Perez Elena
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA.
Biomimetics (Basel). 2024 Jul 6;9(7):411. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics9070411.
Biomass-fungi composite materials primarily consist of biomass particles (sourced from agricultural residues) and a network of fungal hyphae that bind the biomass particles together. These materials have potential applications across diverse industries, such as packaging, furniture, and construction. 3D printing offers a new approach to manufacturing parts using biomass-fungi composite materials, as an alternative to traditional molding-based methods. However, there are challenges in producing parts with desired quality (for example, geometric accuracy after printing and height shrinkage several days after printing) by using 3D printing-based methods. This paper introduces an innovative approach to enhance part quality by incorporating ionic crosslinking into the 3D printing-based methods. While ionic crosslinking has been explored in hydrogel-based bioprinting, its application in biomass-fungi composite materials has not been reported. Using sodium alginate (SA) as the hydrogel and calcium chloride as the crosslinking agent, this paper investigates their effects on quality (geometric accuracy and height shrinkage) of 3D printed samples and physiochemical characteristics (rheological, chemical, and texture properties) of biomass-fungi composite materials. Results show that increasing SA concentration led to significant improvements in both geometric accuracy and height shrinkage of 3D printed samples. Moreover, crosslinking exposure significantly enhanced hardness of the biomass-fungi mixture samples prepared for texture profile analysis, while the inclusion of SA notably improved cohesiveness and springiness of the biomass-fungi mixture samples. Furthermore, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirms the occurrence of ionic crosslinking within 3D printed samples. Results from this study can be used as a reference for developing new biomass-fungi mixtures for 3D printing in the future.
生物质-真菌复合材料主要由生物质颗粒（来源于农业废弃物）和将生物质颗粒粘结在一起的真菌菌丝网络组成。这些材料在包装、家具和建筑等不同行业具有潜在应用。3D打印为使用生物质-真菌复合材料制造部件提供了一种新方法，可替代传统的基于成型的方法。然而，使用基于3D打印的方法生产具有所需质量的部件（例如，打印后的几何精度和打印几天后的高度收缩）存在挑战。本文介绍了一种创新方法，通过将离子交联纳入基于3D打印的方法中来提高部件质量。虽然离子交联已在基于水凝胶的生物打印中得到探索，但其在生物质-真菌复合材料中的应用尚未见报道。本文以海藻酸钠（SA）作为水凝胶，氯化钙作为交联剂，研究了它们对3D打印样品质量（几何精度和高度收缩）以及生物质-真菌复合材料的物理化学特性（流变学、化学和质地特性）的影响。结果表明，增加SA浓度可显著提高3D打印样品的几何精度和高度收缩。此外，交联暴露显著提高了为质地剖面分析制备的生物质-真菌混合物样品的硬度，而SA的加入显著改善了生物质-真菌混合物样品的内聚性和弹性。此外，傅里叶变换红外光谱证实了3D打印样品中发生了离子交联。本研究结果可为未来开发用于3D打印的新型生物质-真菌混合物提供参考。
