{"id":159017,"date":"2023-02-26T13:22:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T19:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/3d-printing-with-bacteria-loaded-ink-produces-bone-like-composites"},"modified":"2023-02-26T13:22:55","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T19:22:55","slug":"3d-printing-with-bacteria-loaded-ink-produces-bone-like-composites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/3d-printing-with-bacteria-loaded-ink-produces-bone-like-composites","title":{"rendered":"3D printing with bacteria-loaded ink produces bone-like composites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/3d-printing-with-bacteria-loaded-ink-produces-bone-like-composites2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nature has an extraordinary knack for producing composite materials that are simultaneously light and strong, porous and rigid \u2014 like mollusk shells or bone. But producing such materials in a lab or factory \u2014 particularly using environmentally friendly materials and processes \u2014 is extremely challenging.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers in the Soft Materials Laboratory in the School of Engineering turned to nature for a solution. They have pioneered a 3D printable ink that contains Sporosarcina pasteurii: a bacterium which, when exposed to a urea-containing solution, triggers a mineralization process that produces calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The upshot is that the researchers can use their ink \u2014 dubbed BactoInk \u2014 to 3D-print virtually any shape, which will then gradually mineralize over the course of a few days.<\/p>\n<p>-This would be good for coral reefs.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>EPFL researchers have published a method for 3D-printing an ink that contains calcium carbonate-producing bacteria. The 3D-printed mineralized bio-composite is unprecedently strong, light, and environmentally friendly, with a range of applications from art to biomedicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature has an extraordinary knack for producing composite materials that are simultaneously light and strong, porous and rigid \u2014 like mollusk shells or bone. But producing such materials in a lab or factory \u2014 particularly using environmentally friendly materials and processes \u2014 is extremely challenging. Researchers in the Soft Materials Laboratory in the School of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}