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International Journal of Bioprinting Guide about the effects of sterilization on 3D-printed materials for medicine

Figure 1. Scheme of the present study.

thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) using FDM (a ME different 3Dprinting technologies and 11 common AM
[31]
technology); (ii) DentaGuide (Asiga) , Dental Surgical materials used for the manufacture of 3D-printed surgical
[32]
Guide Material (Formlabs) [32-34] or Clear V02 (Formlabs) guides, anatomical models, and other customized medical
using SLA (a VP technology) ; and (iii) MED610 using devices. To do so, a literature review and a mechanical
[35]
MJ technology [33,34] . No data on SLS (a PBF technology) testing study was performed. Figure 1 shows the schematic
have been obtained regarding the effect of sterilization of the process in this study.
methods in terms of mechanical properties, limited to only
3D printing accuracy . At present, no study has been 2.1. Materials
[36]
performed to analyze the impact of sterilization in a wide All materials used in this study, including the manufacturer’s
range of materials for making surgical planning models name, city and country of origin, are listed in Table 1.
and surgical guides. 2.2. 3D printing
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate In this section, the different AM technologies used are
the dimensional and mechanical effect of three of the described with summaries of the printing parameters
most commonly used sterilization techniques in clinical needed for the manufacture of the 3D-printed samples.
settings, i.e., Autoclave 121, Autoclave 134, and HPO, Two types of samples were manufactured, one for hard
on 11 of the most used 3D-printed materials using 3D materials and the other for soft materials, with different
printing technologies, such as FDM, SLA, SLS, and MJ. The specimens depending on the mechanical tests to be
goal of the present study is to contribute a practical guide performed. 3D-printed tensile samples following the ISO
regarding the materials which may or may not be used for 527 type IA were produced for all rigid materials. For elastic
each medical application. materials, cylindrical elastic samples (16 mm diameter ×
8 mm height) were printed for Shore hardness test.
2. Materials and methods 2.2.1. Fused deposition modeling

This study evaluates the effects of different sterilization FDM is defined as the continuous deposition of a filament
methods (Autoclave 121, Autoclave 134 and HPO) on four over a heat plate layer-by-layer. The PLA, ABS and TPU

Volume 9 Issue 5 (2023) 147 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.756