Comparative study of silk fibroin‐based hydrogels and their potential as material for 3‐dimensional (3d) printing

Abstract

Three‐dimensional (3D) printing is regarded as a critical technology in material engineering for biomedical applications. From a previous report, silk fibroin (SF) has been used as a bio-material for tissue engineering due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, non‐toxicity and robust mechanical properties which provide a potential as material for 3D‐printing. In this study, SF‐based hydrogels with different formulations and SF concentrations (1–3%wt) were prepared by natural gelation (SF/self‐gelled), sodium tetradecyl sulfate‐induced (SF/STS) and dimyristoyl glycerophos-phorylglycerol‐induced (SF/DMPG). From the results, 2%wt SF‐based (2SF) hydrogels showed suitable properties for extrusion, such as storage modulus, shear‐thinning behavior and degree of structure recovery. The 4‐layer box structure of all 2SF‐based hydrogel formulations could be printed without structural collapse. In addition, the mechanical stability of printed structures after three-step post‐treatment was investigated. The printed structure of 2SF/STS and 2SF/DMPG hydrogels exhibited high stability with high degree of structure recovery as 70.4% and 53.7%, respectively, compared to 2SF/self‐gelled construct as 38.9%. The 2SF/STS and 2SF/DMPG hydrogels showed a great potential to use as material for 3D‐printing due to its rheological properties, printability and structure stability.