Three dimensional printing of microfluidic chip for tissue engineering application

• Main Author: Zhang, Meng
• Other Authors: Yeong Wai Yee
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Manufacturing
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/62115
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The emergence of three dimensional (3D) printing has excited euphoric responses from researchers and offered fresh perspective towards the manufacturing of many products and devices. This paper investigated 3D printing for the fabrication of microfluidic systems for tissue engineering applications. Characterization of printers that adopt two printing technology, namely the polyjet and fused deposition modelling (FDM), was performed in terms of the printing resolution, accuracy, repeatability, surface roughness, wetting ability and biocompatibility of the model materials. The tests that were developed can be adapted for the characterization of other printers that are intended for similar purposes. While 3D printing has the potential of greatly simplifying the manufacturing process chain and allowing the fabrication of complex systems, the present printers are not adept at making micro-scale architectures and pose a number of design limitations.