hey there,
can you tell me which kind of printer should i use in order to print a composite powder for biomedical applications? SLS or FDM?
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SLS, definitely. They’re the powder printers, after all. Do you have a specific composite in mind?
Cheers!
andyL
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hum thats what i thought ! thanks !
and what about the inkjet (binder jetting) printers?? i’ve red lots of articles about 3d printing for bone scaffolds and they’ve been using this method. woult it be better?
Well, a polymer with a bioceramic material. I would like to use polyamide 6 cause they are biocompatible but not biodegradeble but im trying to figure out what can i do do solve this .
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Heya,
@leticiavitalli A polyjet or SLS type of printer is probably your best bet. The material itself is a different story though. Have you seen this website on 3D printing materials and medical applications? - http://envisiontec.com/applications/medical-biofabrication-3d-printing/ . Stratasys also has a bio-compatable polyjet material that may suit your purpose, you can read more here -
http://www.stratasys.com/materials/polyjet/bio-compatible . A lot of these materials seem to focus on dental application, but I hope this points you in the right direction. I’d love to learn more about your project too, sounds interesting.
Alex
thank you very much ! I didnt’t know about this first website.I knew about stratasys dental series though.
Yeap, i actually work for a company as an intern ( research,development and innovation area) cause i still didn’t finish the university ( materials engineering) and i see this project as a huge opportunity to have a career in this compay as and efective employee. ( oh i’m brasilian btw!not so many chances to grow up in here )
anywaysss…do you have more material about this subject ? i’m having so many doubts …
exemple: can i get one of this dental printers and in instead of using their material, try to use my own??
Letícia
I’m no expert in the area of medical 3D prints but it seems to me that SLS is your best bet. My thinking is that with any kind of jet printing you’re using a relatively inert material but the binder may be not so inert or inactive. Something nasty could leech out of the glue or the body could attack the binder, which would compromise the integrity of the print. On the other hand, with SLS, the individual grains of an inert material are actually fused together. So long as the sintering process doesn’t chemically alter the material, you’re good to go and only have one material to worry about. Also, I understand that the sintered product is porous, to some extent, which may come in useful. Just my 10 cents 
thank you very much ! i believe that in this case i wont’t have problem with the chemical alteration during the sintering.
Yeah, the porosity will be useful ! By any chance, do you have any contact who works with medical 3D prints??
