EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

The production of biocompatible hydrogels, used as important drug delivery systems (DDS) in medical applications, is widely known as a state of the art technique. Common manufacturing processes of these materials suffer from burst release due to the increased swelling degree in aqueous media.[1]

We present the 3D-printing of polyelectrolyte hydrogels via digital light processing (DLP)[2] for DDS with controlled drug release. We investigated a high-precision photopolymerizing 3D-printing process for a DDS overcoming the burst release. It was recently shown that hydrogels functionalized with ion groups have the ability to retain the release of counterionic drugs.[3] Due to the high precision DLP printing process more complex and patient specific geometrics are possible.[2]

Different blends of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA), [2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride (AETMA) and deionized water (DI), utilizing lithium-phenyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoylphosphinat (LAP) as photoinitiator and the dye Orange G as absorbing agent for adequate DLP were 3D-printed. Specifically controlling the ratio of PEGDA (as the base polymer and crosslinking agent) and AETMA (as polyelectrolyte functionality) enabling a tailored release behaviour of the 3D-printed DDS. In conclusion, ion functionalized hydrogels are promising candidates for ion exchange-controlled DDS, being advantageous over diffusion-controlled DDS.

[1] J. Claus, A. Brietzke, C. Lehnert, S. Oschatz, N. Grabow, U. Kragl. Swelling characteristics and biocompatibility of ionic liquid-based hydrogels for biomedical applications. PLoS ONE 2020, 15, e0231421.

[2] R. Mau, J. Nazir, S. John, H. Seitz. Preliminary Study on 3D printing of PEGDA Hydrogels for Frontal Sinus Implants using Digital Light Processing (DLP), Curr. Dir. Biomed. Eng. 2019, 5(1), 249-252.

[3] J. Claus, T. Eickner, N. Grabow, U. Kragl, S. Oschatz. Ion Exchange Controlled Drug Release from Polymerized Ionic Liquids. Macromol. Biosci. 2020, 20, e2000152.