[4S05Am] 21. Open Topics in Biotechnology - Part 2

11:05 AM - 11:20 AM JST(2:05 AM - 2:20 AM UTC)

[4Open-05] Development of 3D-Printed Piezoelectric Chitosan Scaffolds

○CHUNG-YI CHIU¹, MING-HUA HO¹ (1. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan))

Keywords:

Chitosan,Piezoelectricity,3D printing,Genipin

Chitosan hydrogels are widely used in biomedical applications because of their intrinsic antibacterial activity and structural similarity to the extracellular matrix (ECM). By integrating with 3D printing technology, these hydrogels can be fabricated into highly precise and customized porous structures, further enabling previse control of scaffold architecture for specific biomedical purposes. Moreover, chitosan inherently exhibits piezoelectricity, and previous studies have demonstrated that piezoelectric signals can promote osteoblast growth. However, most previous researches have investigated chitosan in film form, whereas porous 3D structures remain less explored. This study utilizes 3D printing to develop piezoelectric materials with porous structures. The high porosity would enhance the piezoelectric signals and also allow for the controlled release of drugs.
Our experimental findings reveal that, compared to uncrosslinked samples, genipin-crosslinked chitosan exhibits superior mechanical strength, a reduced gelation time, and greater structural fidelity in 3D printing. These enhancements are likely associated with covalent cross-linking between genipin and chitosan. Because the native piezoelectricity of chitosan is relatively weak, this study employs the polarization treatment to enhance its piezoelectric signals. Two types of samples, consisting of genipin-crosslinked and uncrosslinked chitosan, were fabricated via 3D printing and subjected to polarization. This research examines how the degree of cross-linking, polarization duration and porosity design influence the piezoelectric properties of 3D-printed porous chitosan hydrogels.