Page 407 - IJB-9-4

International Journal of Bioprinting

SHORT COMMUNICATION
Development and characterization of an

automated active mixing platform for hydrogel
bioink preparation

1
Jiannan Li , Tara Shelby , Hossein Vahid Alizadeh , Hannah Shelby ,
1†
1†
1
Yunzhi Peter Yang 1,2,3 *
1 Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Stanford University, 240 Pasteur Drive, Stanford, CA94304,
USA
2 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 496 Lomita Mall, Stanford,
CA94305, USA
3 Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, 443 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA94305, USA

Abstract

Bioink preparation is an important yet challenging step for bioprinting with hydrogels,
as it involves fast and homogeneous mixing of various viscous components. In this
study, we have developed an automated active mixing platform (AAMP), which
allows for high-quality preparation of hydrogel bioinks. The design of AAMP, adapted
from syringe pumps, provides many advantages, including low cost, automated
control, high precision, customizability, and great cytocompatibility, as well as the
potential to intelligently detect the homogeneity. To demonstrate the capability of
† These authors contributed equally AAMP, mixing of different hydrogel components, including alginate and xanthan
to this work. gum with and without Ca , alginate and Laponite, PEGDMA and xanthan gum, was
2+
*Corresponding authors:
Yunzhi Peter Yang performed to investigate an alginate hydrogel preparation process. Colorimetric
(ypyang@stanford.edu) analyses were carried out to evaluate the mixing outcome with AAMP. Result showed
Citation: Li J, Shelby T, that AAMP can prepare homogeneous hydrogel mixing in a fast and automated
Alizadeh HV, et al., 2023, fashion. A multiphysics COMSOL simulation is carried out to further validate the
Development and characterization of results. Moreover, cell viability and proliferation study were performed in a cell
an automated active mixing platform encapsulation mixing experiment to validate the cytocompatibility of the AAMP.
for hydrogel bioink preparation. Int J
Bioprint, 9(4): 705. The AAMP has demonstrated great capability in hydrogel bioink preparation and
https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.705 could therefore holds great promise and wide applications in bioprinting and tissue
Received: May 03, 2022 engineering.
Accepted: September 27, 2022
Published Online: March 10, 2023 Keywords: Bioprinting; Hydrogel; Tissue engineering; Bioink; Biomaterials
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 1. Introduction
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, Hydrogels, as an essential class of materials, are becoming increasingly common in many
provided the original work is fields, including tissue engineering, pharmaceutics, and wound dressings . Specifically,
[1]
properly cited. they are becoming prevalent in the field of tissue engineering, acting as scaffold materials
Publisher’s Note: Whioce that provide desired mechanical properties and biological functionalities [2-4] . With the
Publishing remains neutral with advancement of additive manufacturing, particularly three-dimensional (3D) printing,
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional hydrogels have gained increasing interest as bioinks for the printing of tissue engineered
affiliations. scaffolds [5-14] .

Volume 9 Issue 4 (2023) 399 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.705