Dissolvable Materials
Personalized medicine is a new popular area of interest for additive manufacturing because the selective placement of drugs allows for customized dose, multiple medicines, and tailored time and rate of release. The challenge with incorporation of drugs into filament for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is that the temperature of most filaments requires processing temperatures >100 °C, greatly limiting the active ingredients that can be use inside the material. The DREAMS Lab collaboration with the Long Research Group has developed a water-soluble polymer series with varying counter-ions that can be printed at 70 °C. This material has been shown to be able to be processed with incorporated actives by the Whittington Group, and the ability to print with embed liquids to create burst releases.