Preparation of Designed Poly(trimethylene carbonate) Meniscus Implants by Stereolithography: Challenges in Stereolithography

Abstract

Three-armed poly(trimethylene carbonate) macromers with a relatively high molecular weight of 28.9 kg mol^-1 are prepared by ring opening polymerization and subsequent functionalization with methacrylate end groups. A resin suitable for processing by stereolithography is developed using propylene carbonate as a diluent, a photoinitiator, and a dye to control the curing characteristics. The difficulties in building designed structures with digital light processing stereolithography and the ways of optimizing the resin compositions are described in detail. Using an optimized resin composition, which contained 50 wt% macromer, 50 wt% diluent, 0.05 wt% (relative to the macromer) dye, and 5 wt% (relative to the macromer) photoinitiator, designed 3D porous structures with a gyroid pore network geometry are manufactured. By varying pore sizes and porosities between, respectively, 300 and 1000 μm and 60% and 90%, cylindrical porous poly(trimethylene carbonate) network structures with compression moduli of 85-2320 kPa are prepared. A porous poly(trimethylene carbonate) network meniscus implant is designed on the basis of computed tomography imaging data. By adjusting the characteristics of the gyroid pore architecture, an implant with a compression modulus close to 400 kPa, which fits the compression modulus of human meniscal tissue, is manufactured by stereolithography.

Keywords: digital light processing; photo-polymerization; poly(trimethylene carbonate) networks; stereolithography.