Flexible material formulations for 3D printing of ordered porous beds with applications in bioprocess engineering

Abstract

Background

3D printing is revolutioning many industrial sectors and has the potential to enhance also the biotechnology and bioprocessing fields. Here, we propose a new flexible material formulation to 3D print support matrices with complex, perfectly ordered morphology and with tuneable properties to suit a range of applications in bioprocess engineering.

Findings

Supports were fabricated using functional monomers as the key ingredients, enabling matrices with bespoke chemistry, such as charged groups, chemical moieties for further functionalization, and hydrophobic/hydrophilic groups. Other ingredients, e.g. crosslinkers and porogens, can be employed to fabricate supports with diverse characteristics of their porous network, providing an opportunity to further regulate the mechanical and mass transfer properties of the supports. Through this approach, we fabricated and demonstrated the operation of Schoen gyroid columns with (I) positive and negative charges for ion exchange chromatography, (II) enzyme bioreactors with immobilized trypsin to catalyse hydrolysis, and (III) bacterial biofilm bioreactors for fuel desulphurization.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates a simple, cost-effective, and flexible fabrication of customized 3D printed supports for different biotechnology and bioengineering applications.

Keywords

Biomaterials / Additive manufacturing / Chromatography / Immobilized enzyme bioreactor / Bacterial biofilm bioreactor

References

[1] Barner-Kowollik C, Beuermann S, Buback M, Castignolles P, Charleux B, Coote ML, Hutchinson RA, Junkers T, Lacík I, Russell GT, Stach M, Van Herk AM. Critically evaluated rate coefficients in radical polymerization-7. Secondary-radical propagation rate coefficients for methyl acrylate in the bulk. Polym Chem, 2014

[2] Boi C, Malavasi A, Carbonell RG, Gilleskie G. A direct comparison between membrane adsorber and packed column chromatography performance. J Chromatogr A, 2020, 1612.

[3] Buback M. II. Fundamentals of free-radical polymerization propagation kinetics in radical polymerization studied via pulsed laser techniques. Macromol Symposia, 2009

[4] Dolamore F, Fee C, Dimartino S. Modelling ordered packed beds of spheres: the importance of bed orientation and the influence of tortuosity on dispersion. J Chromatogr A, 2018, 1532: 150-160.

[5] Femmer T, Kuehne AJC, Torres-Rendon J, Walther A, Wessling M. Print your membrane: rapid prototyping of complex 3D-PDMS membranes via a sacrificial resist. J Membr Sci, 2015, 478: 12-18.

[6] Gibbs HD. Phenol tests: III. The indophenol test. J Biol Chem, 1927, 72(2): 649-664.

[7] Guedidi S, Yurekli Y, Deratani A, Déjardin P, Innocent C, Altinkaya SA, Roudesli S, Yemenicioglu A. Effect of enzyme location on activity and stability of trypsin and urease immobilized on porous membranes by using layer-by-layer self-assembly of polyelectrolyte. J Membr Sci, 2010, 365(1): 59-67.

[8] Hahn R, Panzer M, Hansen E, Mollerup J, Jungbauer A. Mass transfer properties of monoliths. Sep Sci Technol, 2002, 37(7): 1545-1565.

[9] Lin X, Yao J, Dong H, Cao X. Effective cell and particle sorting and separation in screen-printed continuous-flow microfluidic devices with 3D sidewall electrodes. Ind Eng Chem Res, 2016, 55(51): 13085-13093.

[10] Mohebali G, Ball AS. Biodesulfurization of diesel fuels—past, present and future perspectives. Int Biodeterior Biodegradation, 2016, 110: 163-180.

[11] Saha A, Johnston TG, Shafranek RT, Goodman CJ, Zalatan JG, Storti DW, Ganter MA, Nelson A. Additive manufacturing of catalytically active living materials. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces, 2018, 10(16): 13373-13380.

[12] Salmean C, Dimartino S. 3D-printed stationary phases with ordered morphology: state of the art and future development in liquid chromatography. Chromatographia, 2019

[13] Schoen AH. Reflections concerning triply-periodic minimal surfaces. Interface Focus, 2012, 2(5): 658-668.

[14] Schure MR, Maier RS, Kroll DM, Davis HT. Simulation of ordered packed beds in chromatography. J Chromatogr A, 2004, 1031(1–2): 79-86.

[15] Shakeel Syed M, Rafeie M, Henderson R, Vandamme D, Asadnia M, Ebrahimi Warkiani M. A 3D-printed mini-hydrocyclone for high throughput particle separation: application to primary harvesting of microalgae. Lab Chip, 2017, 17(14): 2459-2469.

[16] Simon U, Scorza LCT, Teworte S, McCormick AJ, Dimartino S. Demonstration of protein capture and separation using three-dimensional printed anion exchange monoliths fabricated in one-step. J Separat Sci, 2020

[17] Smith PK, Krohn RI, Hermanson GT, Mallia AK, Gartner FH, Provenzano MD, Fujimoto EK, Goeke NM, Olson BJ, Klenk DC. Measurement of protein using bicinchoninic acid. Anal Biochem, 1985, 150(1): 76-85.

[18] Staby A, Sanda MB, Hansenb RG, Jacobsen JH, Andersen LA, Gerstenberg M, Bruus UK, Jensena IH (2005) Comparison of chromatographic ion-exchange resins: IV. Strong and weak cation-exchange resins and heparin resins. J Chromatogr A 1069(1):65–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2004.11.094

[19] Tan R, Franzreb M. Continuous ultrafiltration/diafiltration using a 3D-printed two membrane single pass module. Biotechnol Bioeng, 2020, 117(3): 654-661.

[20] Wang W, Ma T, Lian K, Zhang Y, Tian H, Ji K, Li G. Genetic analysis of benzothiophene biodesulfurization pathway of Gordonia terrae strain C-6. PLoS ONE, 2013, 8(12

[21] Wang H, Cocovi-Solberg DJ, Hu B, Miró M. 3D-printed microflow injection analysis platform for online magnetic nanoparticle sorptive extraction of antimicrobials in biological specimens as a front end to liquid chromatographic assays. Anal Chem, 2017

Funding

Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre(2019-2-3)