EnvisionTEC’s Bioplotter

EnvisionTEC is the world’s leading provider of professional 3D printers and materials. Founded in 2002 with its pioneering commercial DLP printing technology, EnvisionTEC is now selling 3D printers based on six distinct technologies that build objects from digital design files. The company’s premium 3D printers serve a wide range of medical, technical, and industrial markets and are respected for accuracy, surface quality, flexibility, and speed.

Additive production is also one of the disruptive techniques in the area of biomaterials. In particular, the capacities provided by EnvisionTEC’s 3D-Bioplotter allow us to build prototype implants with a special architecture that could not be created in any other way. Another example is the EnvisionTEC 3D-Bioplotter capable of producing a vast variety of soft and hard scaffolds using single or multiple materials (see Figure 3.12).

FIGURE 3.12 (a) Fourth generation 3D Bioplotter manufacturer series; (b) Schematic of the

building platform. (EnvisionTEC 2017.)

Extrusion processes have been extensively used in the medical field, for example, to develop a more realistic airway trainer (Figure 3.13a), for the fabrication of customized molds for the pressing of a thin titanium sheet that will act as an orbital floor implant (Figure 3.13b), for the fabrication of bone bio-models for in-depth assessment and pre-surgical rehearsal resulting in a smoother operation process in which implants are more accurately fitted to the curvature of the patient’s bone (Figure 3.13c), and the fabrication of exoskeletons (Figure 3.13d).

RegenHU’s 3D Bioprinting

The RegenHU 3DDiscovery is a 3D bioprinter developed by RegenHU, a manufacturer based in Switzerland. Bioprinting is a precise deposit of biomaterials such as cells, proteins, bacteria, and bio-gels in 2D or 3D. This technology can be used as a method for high-performance applications or to replicate biological systems that are similar and more precise to real living systems for study, testing, and diagnostic purposes. The aim of the RegenHU 3DDiscovery was to explore the potential of 3D tissue engineering through a bioprinting approach.

RegenHU provides state-of-the-art bioprinting solutions to enable your scientific and clinical ambitions. RegenHU 3D bioprinters are used for tissue engineering, personalized medicine, regenerative medicine, and basic drug discovery experiments. RegenHU’s 3D bioprinting platforms are known worldwide for their industry-leading flexibility and precision. Customers use RegenHU 3D bioprinters to print bone, muscle, tendon, skin, kidney, liver, and lung tissue (Figure 3.14).

FIGURE 3.13 (a) Technician assembling a prototype airway trainer; (b) Patient’s missing orbital floor (left) versus original shape before impact (right) and the customized mold for titanium sheet pressing; (c) Corrective osteotomy (realignment of bone from deformity) to complex bone fractures; (d) Custom orthopedic exoskeleton.

FIGURE 3.14 RegenHU’s 3D bioprinter.