Microgel in Microgel Printing

This rendering depicts an extrusion 3D process where microgels (green) are printed and stabilized into a microgel bath (purple). When printing soft materials, such as microgels, it is often very hard to have properties that allow direct printing onto a surface as the material can not support itself or additional layers during the print process. This novel idea by the Feinberg lab at UCM first implemented this technique but with viscous liquid bioinks instead of microgels (like here). This support bath enables higher resolution printing and the printing of 3D objects that may not be possible without external support. Here, we utilized this technique to spatially pattern temperature-responsive microgels within a non-temperature responsive microgel bath. Based on the pattern, you can elicit dynamic shape changed via temperature. This work is led by a postdoc in the Burdick lab!

Publication: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202410661