Multi-material additive manufacturing technologies for Fe-based biomaterials

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The growing interest in multi-functional metallic biomaterials for bone substitutes challenges the current additive manufacturing technologies. It is foreseeable that advances in multi-material AM for metallic biomaterials will not only allow for complex geometrical designs, but also improve their multi-functionalities by tuning the types or compositions of the underlying base materials, thereby presenting unprecedented opportunities for advanced orthopedic treatments.

AM technologies are yet to be extensively explored for the fabrication of multi-functional metallic biomaterials, especially for bone substitutes. Five AM technologies suitable for metal 3D printing are compared against the requirements for multi-material AM.

Of these AM technologies, extrusion-based multi-material AM is shown to have the greatest potential to meet the requirements for the fabrication of multi-functional metallic biomaterials.

 Finally, recent progress in the fabrication of Fe-based biomaterials including the utilization of multi-material AM technologies is reviewed so as to identify the knowledge gaps and propose the directions of further research for the development of multi-material AM technologies that are applicable for the fabrication of multi-functional metallic biomaterials.

Alex John
Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Whatsapp No.: +32 25889658
biotechbiomaterials@journalres.org