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Bionic 3D printed corals.

Daniel Wangpraseurt^1,2,3, Shangting You⁴, Farooq Azam⁵

¹Bioinspired Photonics Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. dwangpraseurt@ucsd.edu.

Nature Communications

|April 11, 2020

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This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers created 3D printed bionic corals to boost microalgal growth. These coral-inspired systems improve light management, enabling high cell densities for bioenergy and bioproducts.

Area of Science:

Biomaterials Science
Photosynthesis Research
Bioengineering

Background:

Microalgal cultivation is limited by light attenuation due to self-shading.
Corals exhibit optimized light management for symbiotic microalgal growth.
Scalable bioenergy and bioproduct generation requires overcoming light limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop coral-inspired bionic materials for enhanced microalgal cultivation.
To mimic coral's light management properties for efficient photosynthesis.
To create a platform for high-density microalgal growth.

Main Methods:

Utilized a 3D bioprinting platform to create bionic corals.
Mimicked coral tissue morphology, skeleton structure, and optical properties at micron resolution.

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Developed hybrid photosynthetic biomaterials integrating microalgae.

Main Results:

Achieved high spatial cell densities of up to 10^9 cells/mL.
Demonstrated efficient light management and photosynthetic quantum efficiencies.
Successfully replicated structural and functional traits of coral-algal symbiosis.

Conclusions:

3D printed bionic corals offer a novel solution for scalable microalgal cultivation.
These materials can overcome light attenuation limitations in photobioreactors.
The developed bionic materials have applications in coral reef research and bioproduct generation.