Porous structures prepared by a novel route: combination of digital light processing 3D printing and leaching method

Abstract

We present a route to prepare porous structures by combining digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing with a leaching process. Porous structures with different pore-size distributions were successfully fabricated via the combined route. Specifically, the porous structures were directly prepared on the mount by adopting a bottom-up DLP 3D printing method. To apply the leaching process, NaCl salts were adopted and the size distribution of the salts was adjusted to control the pore size in the porous structures. Two different size distributions of the salts, in the range of 25-75 μm and 95-135 μm, respectively, were adopted to print the porous structures, which were successfully achieved with a solid loading of 60 vol.% of NaCl salts. In actuality, the morphological and microstructural characteristics of the porous structures were determined by the size distribution of NaCl salts and the relative quantity of salts. The role of NaCl salts in the printing process was demonstrated, and the novel route was successfully applied to fabricate a biocompatible porous structure.