3D Printing of Biopolymer Composites Fabricated from Polylactic Acid & Eggshell Derived Hydroxyapatite

Abstract

Hydroxyapatite ( is a naturally occurring mineral form of calcium apatite, which is found in 65 70 of human bones Waste derived HAp is attracting considerable attention due to its excellent biocompatibility and capacity to enhance the proliferation of osteoblastic cells In the present work, HAp was synthesized from waste chicken eggshell and subsequently incorporated as a filler (at different concentrations) into a polymer matrix of polylactic acid ( to fabricate composite filaments for fused deposition modeling ( 3 D printing The filaments were fabricated via extrusion using a solvent free process Then, these were placed in an Ender 3 pro FDM 3 D printer to create PLA/HAp composite specimens and scaffolds Results from the tensile test analysis suggest that the elastic modulus of the 3 D printed samples increases with the HAp content in the range from 0 3 wt Similarly, the reprocessing (re extrusion) of the filaments, results in stiffer specimens The impedance spectroscopy analysis suggests that the presence of HAp into the PLA polymer matrix, resulted in a composite material with enhanced conductivity