Multi-material additive manufacturing technologies for Ti-, Mg-, and Fe-based biomaterials for bone substitution

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Science and Engineering
• Additive Manufacturing (AM)
• Orthopedic Implants

Background:

• Growing demand for multi-functional metallic biomaterials for bone substitutes.
• Current additive manufacturing (AM) technologies face challenges in multi-material fabrication.
• Need for advanced orthopedic treatments with tailored metallic bone substitutes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review state-of-the-art multi-material AM for Ti-, Mg-, and Fe-based bone substitutes.
• To compare AM technologies against multi-material requirements.
• To identify research gaps and future directions in multi-material AM for metallic biomaterials.

Main Methods:

• Review of bone tissue engineering requirements for metallic biomaterials.
• Comparison of five metal AM technologies for multi-material capabilities.
• Analysis of recent progress in Ti-, Mg-, and Fe-based biomaterial fabrication using AM.

Main Results:

• Extrusion-based multi-material AM demonstrates the highest potential for fabricating multi-functional metallic biomaterials.
• AM offers advantages over conventional methods for designing complex metallic bone substitutes.
• Progress in Ti-, Mg-, and Fe-based biomaterials fabricated via multi-material AM is reviewed.

Conclusions:

• Multi-material AM holds significant promise for developing advanced, multi-functional metallic bone substitutes.
• Further research is needed to advance multi-material AM technologies for orthopedic applications.
• Extrusion-based AM is a key technology for future multi-functional metallic biomaterial development.