Journal article
A practical guide to hydrogel working curves for bioprinting
Additive manufacturing letters, Vol.14, 100293
07/2025
DOI: 10.1016/j.addlet.2025.100293
Abstract
The working curve is a widely implemented, but presently not standardized, method of assessing resin printability for photopolymer additive manufacturing technologies. While the working curve has been studied and refined for plastic resins, application to hydrogel materials used in bioprinting has been limited. Hydrogels present measurement challenges due to their decreased solids content, compliant nature, and significant swelling. Here, adapting lessons learned from interlaboratory studies on plastic working curves, we assess various techniques for hydrogel working curve measurements. Notably, across several formulations with various molecular weights and solids content, hydrogels exhibit near ideal log-linear behavior consistent with the Jacobs model when measured appropriately. However, certain measurement modalities (such as contact-based and rheological) can indicate Jacobs-like behavior, but with systematic errors in the cure depth compared to non-contact optical methods. Overall, this work highlights the challenges when conducting hydrogel working curve measurements and provides several considerations to help further develop and standardize measurements across 3D bioprinting applications.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- A practical guide to hydrogel working curves for bioprinting
- Creators
- Rion J. WendlandThomas J. KolibabaKristan S. Worthington - University of IowaJason P. Killgore
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Additive manufacturing letters, Vol.14, 100293
- Publisher
- Elsevier; AMSTERDAM
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.addlet.2025.100293
- ISSN
- 2772-3690
- eISSN
- 2772-3690
- Grant note
- National Research Council Associateship Award at the National Institute of Standards and TechnologyNIH (National Institute of Health)
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. This work was performed while Rion Wendland held a National Research Council Associateship Award at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Photorheology was performed in the Wor-thington Lab at the University of Iowa. Fluorescent beads were obtained from the Burdick Biomaterials and Biofabrication Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. The confocal laser scanning microscopy was per-formed at the University of Colorado Boulder BioFrontiers Institute Advanced Light Microscopy Core (RRID: SCR_018302) . The Nikon AXR Laser Scanning Confocal is supported by NIH (National Institute of Health) grant 1S10OD034320.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 05/22/2025
- Date published
- 07/2025
- Academic Unit
- Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984825534702771
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