CSIRO Launches Silicone Resins to Boost Biomedical Manufacturing

CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, may be paving the way for a new era of manufacturing with silicone due to its development of next-generation silicone resins for making 3D printed medical parts.

As a relative newcomer to the global 3D printing market, silicone is said to have enormous potential for 3D printing and is estimated to be worth over $91 billion dollars by 2026. But, as a new technology, 3D printing with silicone has its challenges, including low resolution and slow speed as the key issues. Current silicone resins are also restricted for use on specialized printers, which can be expensive.

To solve these problems, CSIRO researchers have developed a family of new silicone products. These biocompatible resins are said to boast a suite of excellent attributes, and can be used with off-the-shelf printers, without the need for modification.”

The agency says these resins are non-cytotoxic and capable of printing complex designs in high resolution, including irregular shapes, thin walls and hollow structures. The printed silicone parts produced with the resins have tunable mechanical properties, making them customizable for different applications.

It is said the resins have applications in 3D printed medical devices and customized products such as dental devices, hearing aids and cochlear implants, prosthetics and other patient-specific medical devices. Researchers also believe the resins may even help fast track prototyping some of these biomedical devices.

Parts made with the resins are very soft and have great compressive elasticity and high transparency, the agency says. The silicone resins work on the digital light processing 3D printer (light wavelength range is 360-500 nm) and are also accessible to common, commercially available desktop DLP printers. The technology may also work in stereolithography (SLA) 3D printers and perhaps with modification in other photocurable 3D printers such as inkjet and extrusion.

A surprising novel feature is said to be the resin’s superglue properties, the agency says. The research team discovered the resins can easily affix glass and metal, opening up an entirely new market as a construction adhesive. The team has patented its novel silicone resins and is seeking industrial partners to help commercialize the product.