Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 13, 2025
Author Spotlight: Understanding Chronic Lung Diseases Using 3D Printed Phototunable Hydrogels
Published on: June 30, 2023
General One-Pot Method for Preparing Highly Water-Soluble and Biocompatible Photoinitiators for Digital Light
Hui Wang1, Biao Zhang1, Jianhong Zhang1
1Frontiers Science Center for Flexible Electronics (FSCFE), Xi'an Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE) and Xi'an Institute of Biomedical Materials & Engineering (IBME), Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 West Youyi Road, Xi'an 710072, China.
Abstract:
We report a facile but general method to prepare highly water-soluble and biocompatible photoinitiators for digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D printing of high-resolution hydrogel structures. Through a simple and straightforward one-pot procedure, we can synthesize a metal-phenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphinates (M-TMPP)-based photoinitiator with excellent water solubility (up to ∼50 g/L), which is much higher than that of previously reported water-soluble photoinitiators. The M-TMPP aqueous solutions show excellent biocompatibility, which meets the prerequisite for biomedical applications. Moreover, we used M-TMPP to prepare visible light (405 nm)-curable hydrogel precursor solutions for 3D printing hydrogel structures with a high water content (80 wt %), high resolution (∼7 μm), high deformability (more than 80% compression), and complex geometry. The printed hydrogel structures demonstrate great potential in flexible electronic sensors due to the fast mechanical response and high stability under cyclic loadings.
