Water-Based Antimicrobial Coating For FDM Medical Devices

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is an emerging technology used to implement new concepts and explore new possibilities. One example is the creation of 3D printed medical devices that have been specially designed to meet the needs of different patients1.

The concept of an on-demand 3D printed surgical kit was studied by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)2 (2013). In their study, DARPA used tools that were printed on a uPrint Plus SE™ 3D Printer with a specially made ABS modeling material compounded with a small amount of silver additive. The study demonstrated that functioning surgical devices can be successfully produced on a 3D printer using commercially available equipment and software. However, the sterility of these devices was determined to be limited. Specifically, the antimicrobial efficacy of these 3D printed devices was demonstrated to be a 60% reduction in bacterial growth as compared to those printed with standard ABS model materials. The research concluded that further study was needed in order to reach 4 log or higher log reduction in bacterial growth.

The process of sterilizing 3D printed devices was also studied by Espalin, et. al. (2012) in a joint project between Stratasys and the University of Texas at El Paso3. This study demonstrated that the process of sterilizing 3D printed medical devices is actually quite complicated — especially when the devices have been produced with ABS modeling materials — because the high temperatures involved in the autoclave sterilization process can cause deformation.