Engineered 3D-Printed Poly(lactic acid) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) Membranes' Caster for Preparation...

Chitosan membranes have attracted growing interest for separation and sensing applications owing to their biodegradability, chemical functionality, and film-forming ability. However, strong adhesion to the casting surface makes conventional Petri dish fabrication challenging. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) membrane caster was fabricated via fused deposition modeling (FDM) with a removable Teflon base sheet, enabling reliable casting and easy detachment of membranes. The caster is reusable, customizable in size and geometry, and compatible with both of the conventional filaments, polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filaments, without interfering with membrane integrity. Characterization by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and EDX confirmed comparable results between membranes cast on the 3D caster and a conventional glass Petri dish. Water uptake (∼93-94%) and thickness distribution (∼35-43 μm) were consistent across all casting platforms, indicating negligible differences in swelling behavior and uniformity. This scalable approach is readily adaptable to other membrane types and offers a practical fabrication model for liquid membranes (LMs) and polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) in future separation systems.